Your URL structure can be important for both your users and search engines. Creating a well-thought-out structure can help make your website more user-friendly and improve your SEO. In this article, we’ll go over some tips on how to create a good URL structure for your WordPress website.
How URLs Work for SEO
URLs are one of the many factors that search engines use to rank a website. A good URL structure can help your website rank higher in search results. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating your URL structure:
Use keywords in your URLs: Including relevant keywords in your URLs can help your website rank higher for those keywords.
Keep it short and simple: Long, complicated URLs can be difficult for users to remember and can hurt your SEO. Try to keep your URLs short and sweet.
Use hyphens to separate words: Using hyphens to separate words in your URL makes it easier for search engines to read and index your website.
URL Best Practices for SEO
Now that we’ve gone over how URLs work for SEO, let’s take a look at some best practices for creating URLs that will help your website rank higher in search results.
1. Use keywords in your URL: Using relevant keywords in your URL can help your website rank higher for those keywords. Try to include one or two keywords in your URL that are relevant to the content on the page.
2. Keep it short and simple: As we said before, long and complicated URLs can be difficult for users to remember and can hurt your SEO. Try to keep your URLs short and sweet.
3. Use hyphens to separate words: Using hyphens to separate words in your URL makes it easier for search engines to read and index your website.
4. Use canonical URLs: A canonical URL is the preferred version of a web page. By specifying a canonical URL, you’re telling search engines which version of the page to index. This is important because if there are multiple versions of a page (for example, if the same content can be accessed at both www.example.com and example.com), search engines might index both versions, which could hurt your SEO.
5. Use lowercase letters: Using lowercase letters in your URL can help improve the readability of your website and make it easier for search engines to index your site.
URL practices that could hurt your SEO
There are some URL practices that could hurt your website’s SEO. Here are some things to avoid when creating your URL structure:
1. Don’t use too many keywords: Using too many keywords in your URL can hurt your website’s SEO. This is because it can look spammy to search engines and users.
2. Don’t use session IDs: Session IDs are often used to track user data, but they can also harm your website’s SEO. Search engines may view pages with session IDs as duplicate content, which could hurt rankings.
3. Don’t use special characters: Using special characters in your URL (such as &, ?, #, $, etc.) can make it difficult for search engines to index your website.
Creating a well-thought-out URL structure can be important for both your users and your website’s SEO. Following the tips in this article will help you create URLs that are user-friendly and rank higher in search results!