Last Updated on December 12, 2021 by Scott Charleboix

Make your URL SEO-Friendly by including your target keyword in your page URL is not likely to lead to a huge leap in your rankings, but it is a relatively easy way for you to give the search engines another hint as to what your page is about. Equally important, however: descriptive URLs are good for users.

Make your URL SEO-Friendly

Which is more meaningful:

http://yogadvds.net/by-style/iyengar or http://yogadvds.net/page.php?id=3432&catid=87?

Wherever a user sees your URL, whether in their browser window, email, Facebook post, press release, etc., the descriptive URL provides a subtle reminder of the page topic. Last but not least, searchers are more likely to click on a result where the URL clearly communicates that the page matches what they’re looking for, so you’ll get more clicks too. In this post, I’ll show you how to improve your Page Relevancy score by following best practices for descriptive URLs.

Learn how to create descriptive URLs

“Ugly” URLs are usually a problem with Content Management Systems (CMS) and other dynamic page generators that often include a long list of machine-readable parameters as part of the URL.

For example, a default URL generated by WordPress might look like this: http://example.com/?p=124&mycategory=3&myclient=john

Fortunately, most CMS (including WordPress) allow you to create “pretty” URLs, also called descriptive URLs or SEO-friendly URLs.

In WordPress, you’ll find this option under Settings > Permalinks. For other CMS, search for “SEO-friendly URLs” or ask your webmaster.

Choose a URL format that includes the page title

For most CMS systems, the easiest way to create SEO-friendly URLs is to get the CMS to generate a URL based upon the page title. If your page title includes your keyword (and of course it will, since you’re thinking about SEO!), then the generated URL will automatically be descriptive enough for our purposes.

What does the ideal URL look like?

If you’re not using a CMS, or are using a system that allows greater control over your URL structure, you can get even more expressive with your URLs. The ideal URL structure should mirror your site hierarchy, starting with a broad category, then proceeding to more specific categories (if present), and finally, to the specific page.

This post (below) is helpful for ensuring that your building an optimal site structure for your website.

PinArtwork: The post, build your site architecture for optimal SEO will be of great value for you to build sitelinks.  Sitelinks are those internal links that you see when you do a Google search.  Good website site architecture makes sure users and search engine crawlers can move easily through your site. It helps users know “What do I do here?” and “Where do I go next?”

For example: http://www.rei.com/climbing-gear/helmets – Furthermore, the ideal URL should not be too long (shoot for less than 100 characters), nor should it contain too many nested directory levels

(eg, http://example.com/really/unnecessary/to/bury/your/page/so/deep/like/this). However, all of these issues are finer points. If your URL is easily understood by humans and contains your keyword (or a variation thereof), you’re probably already getting all the SEO benefit one can expect from a URL.