Story Based Question
Imagine an entrepreneur who recently launched an online store selling handmade jewelry. The business has a great selection of products, but the entrepreneur realizes that their URLs are all over the place—some are long and confusing, while others don’t make sense for SEO. They start thinking: “How can I create an SEO-friendly URL structure for my online store to make it easier for customers and search engines to find my products?”
Exact Answer
To create an SEO-friendly URL structure for an online store, focus on making URLs clean, descriptive, and simple. Include relevant keywords, use hyphens to separate words, avoid using special characters, and maintain a logical hierarchy for easy navigation.
Explanation
An SEO-friendly URL structure helps search engines understand the content of your pages and makes it easier for users to navigate your website. Here’s how you can optimize your URLs for better SEO performance:
- Keep It Short and Simple:
- Shorter URLs are easier to read and share. Aim to keep URLs under 100 characters while still making them descriptive.
- For example, a URL like
www.yourstore.com/bracelets/gold-braceletis clear and concise.
- Use Descriptive Keywords:
- Include relevant keywords in your URL to help search engines understand the page content. For example, use words like “handmade-necklaces” or “vintage-rings” rather than generic terms like “product12345.”
- Make sure the keywords align with what people are searching for and match the content of the page.
- Use Hyphens, Not Underscores:
- Use hyphens (
-) to separate words, as search engines treat hyphens as space. For example, “handmade-gold-ring” is better than “handmade_gold_ring.” - Avoid underscores (
_), as search engines may not treat them as separators.
- Use hyphens (
- Avoid Special Characters and Numbers:
- Avoid using special characters like
&,%, or#, as they can confuse search engines. Also, try not to use numbers unless they’re part of the product name or identifier. - For instance, instead of
www.yourstore.com/product?id=123, usewww.yourstore.com/handmade-silver-ring.
- Avoid using special characters like
- Organize with a Logical Hierarchy:
- Make sure your URLs reflect the structure of your website. For example, use categories to organize products and create a URL structure like:
www.yourstore.com/jewelry/bracelets/gold-bracelet- This URL structure helps both search engines and users understand where the product fits within the broader site structure.
- Make sure your URLs reflect the structure of your website. For example, use categories to organize products and create a URL structure like:
- Use Lowercase Letters:
- Always use lowercase letters in URLs. Uppercase letters can create duplicate content issues if the URL is indexed in both uppercase and lowercase formats.
- For example,
www.yourstore.com/handmade-ringis better thanwww.yourstore.com/Handmade-Ring.
- Avoid Dynamic Parameters:
- Avoid URLs with dynamic parameters like
?id=1234or&sort=price. These can be hard for search engines to crawl and index. - Stick to static, clean URLs for better SEO results.
- Avoid URLs with dynamic parameters like
- Make It Human-Readable:
- Your URLs should be easy for humans to read and understand. If the URL looks confusing or contains random characters, it may be off-putting to visitors.
- A good URL is intuitive and gives an idea of what the page is about before they even click.
Example
Let’s go back to the jewelry store owner. They started with messy URLs like www.yourstore.com/product12345 and www.yourstore.com/jewelry/item5678. After learning about SEO-friendly URL structures, they made the following changes:
- Before:
www.yourstore.com/product12345- After:
www.yourstore.com/handmade-gold-bracelet - This URL is descriptive, includes a relevant keyword, and is much easier to understand.
- After:
- Before:
www.yourstore.com/jewelry/item5678- After:
www.yourstore.com/jewelry/bracelets/silver-bracelet - This URL follows a logical hierarchy, includes both the category and product name, and uses hyphens to separate words.
- After:
- Before:
www.yourstore.com/product?id=234- After:
www.yourstore.com/handmade-silver-necklace - This URL is static, simple, and keyword-rich.
- After:
By optimizing their URLs, the jewelry store owner saw a noticeable improvement in their search engine rankings and made it easier for customers to find products on their site.