URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. A keyword rich URL can be helpful in your SEO activities. It plays an important role in your website’s ranking. Well-defined and clear URLs structured are easily crawled by search engine spiders and improves your website’s online visibility.Conduct a search on the web and you will find that there are many websites that they don’t have structured and keyword rich URLs. URLs are the important part of on-page SEO actions. The way you build them is crucial because it can affect the whole SEO campaign.

Unfortunately not every website has built in SEO elements. It’s difficult to redesign and restructure everything to improve your website’s organic rankings. If you have hundreds of web pages in your website, it will become complex to change every URL name. Here are some standard URLs that you can consider while restructuring your website.

Dynamic and static URLs

A dynamic URL is generated from specific queries to a website’s database. The major problem with dynamic URL is that they are usually complicated and don’t have keywords. They are relatively long. They are not user friendly and have low click through rate. For instance: http://shopping.ebay.in/promo/LCD/?_qi=RTM970659.

Static URLs don’t have any URL parameters and they don’t change. For instance, http://www.galaxyweblinks.com/products/website-ranking-software/ is static URL.  Static URLs have high click through rate and they are keyword rich. They are easy to remember and share.

Unstructured and Structured URLs

Unstructured URLs don’t match the website structure. You need to create a structure of web pages and folders to create a structured URL. For instance http://www.galaxyweblinks.com/portfolio/mobile-app/iphone/ is a structured URL where it clearly has a defined structure, services>mobile app>iphone. Structured URLs are more meaningful and have more targeted keywords.

Lengthy URLs

Lengthy URLs can reduce your website’s rankings and have low click through rate. For instance, http://www.ebay.in/sch/LED-TVs-/172312/i.html?LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1&_trkparms=65%253A1%257C66%253A3%257C39%253A6&rt=nc&_nkw=LG&_dmd=2&_sc=1&_sticky=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_vc=1&_sop=12&_sc=1 is a very long URL. They are not user friendly and can break off while you cut and paste them. And most importantly they are difficult to remember. You should avoid long URLs. Categories your products and provide appropriate names to URLs.

Here are some guidelines to create SEO friendly URLs:

●        Consider the length of URL. Limit URL names within 3-5 words.

●        Provide dashes instead of underscores. Google sees dashes as individual hyphenated words.

●        URLs are case sensitive. Users usually use lower case and it’s better to stick with lower case in URL.

●        Consider static URL structure.

●        Don’t use file extensions like .exe, .fw, .pdf etc in your URL.

●        Avoid numbers and spam words in your URL structure.

●        Use appropriate 301-redirects.

URLs hold different web pages and structure of your website. A keyword rich, short and obvious URL is easily crawled and indexed by search engine. It can improve your search engine rankings and are easily remembered and shared by users.

SEO friendly URL structure can increase chances of ranking higher in search engine results. Google gives authority to well defined and structured URLs. If you are looking for complete SEO assistance including on-page and off-page optimization, link building, and URL restructuring, please contact with our SEO Team.