We all want our content to be the first one that pops up when a mom goes to type in relatable search terms into any search engine. That’s the goal right?! There are several steps you can take on the backend to set-up your content for the best SEO success. I’m sure we all have spent countless minutes trying to turn that silly Yoast SEO light from red to orange to green. If you get the green light, awesome! Good work! However, one area we often gloss over is the URL structure.
In this article we will walk through best practices for creating a search engine AND user friendly URL! Please note, these ideas should be filed under the, “if we have the time, mom power and enough wine, let’s be sure to do this,” not in the, “If we don’t spend hours making our URLs perfect Google will never show our content. EVER.” bin.
The goal here is to make things as easy for search engines (and readers) to find your content as it relates to the search terms. The easier we make it, the better your changes for success!
#1 :: The Easier To Read, The Better.
This may seem simple enough, but the easier a URL is to read for people, the better it is for search engines. Accessibility and readability have always been part of SEO. After all, the biggest factor in determining whether content is relevant based on the search terms is user engagement. If a user is not clicking on your content when it pops up in search results, then search engines take notice of that.
Here is a diagram to demonstrate good practices for creating URLs and how it relates to engagement:
#2 :: Keywords In URLs Are A Good Thing.
Using keywords in the URL itself is a great strategy for building URLs. Keywords in the URL help indicate to those who see your URL on social media, in an email, as they hover over the link to click it, that they are going to get what they want and what they expect when going to that page.
Also, keywords in the URL show up in search results. The URL is one of the main elements searchers consider when selecting what search result (a.k.a. website URL) to click.
In this example, you can see how search terms are bolded in the search result URLs, making it more apparent to searchers what best matches what they are looking for:
#3 :: Shorter URLs Are Best.
Shorter URLs are, generally speaking, the best route to go. Yoast SEO does a fantastic job in telling you when an URL needs to be shortened and actually does it for you in some cases. General rule of thumb is your URL should be between 50 – 60 characters. Anything over that should be rewritten to gain better value.
The common misconception with this point is that the problem doesn’t lie with search engines having issues processing the long URLs. The issue lies with usability and user experience. Remember what we mentioned before? A reader is more likely to click on a URL that is readable and one they can understand! Shorter URLs are easier to process, copy and paste, share on social media, etc. All these actions boost engagement and in-turn your SEO power!
#4 :: Scrub Out The Stop Words, They Aren’t Necessary.
If your title/headline includes stop words (and, or, but, of, the, a, etc.), you don’t need to put them in the URL. This is especially helpful if you are trying to condense your URL and make it shorter. Stop words eat up your character count, when they aren’t absolutely necessary. Obviously, use your best judgement on whether or not to include stop words, keeping in mind readability.
#5 :: Keyword Repetition Looks Spammy. More Isn’t Always More.
Check out the search result listing below, and you’ll see a whole lot of “pregnancy” in the URL. That’s probably not ideal, and it could drive some searchers to bias against wanting to click.
Keyword repetition like this doesn’t help your search rankings, as search engines are smart enough now to recognize keywords stuffing and spam content. Typically, placing your focus keyword in your URL ONCE is enough! This is especially important to keep in mind as most of our sites also have the main Category in the URL structure as well.
So in this case, if you were writing a post called “A First-Time Mom’s Guide To Pregnancy” and the main category was “Pregnancy” your URL would look like this:
http://cityname.citymomsblog.com/pregnancy/first-time-moms-guide-pregnancy
You may want to consider revising it to:
http://cityname.citymomsblog.com/mom/first-time-moms-guide-pregnancy
OR
http://cityname.citymomsblog.com/pregnancy/first-time-moms-guide-having-baby
The moral of the story is to keep in mind these key elements when building your URLs:
- Make URL easy to read by READER first.
- Use relevant keywords.
- Shorter is better.
- Remove filler and stop words.
- Don’t be repetitive with keywords.