Before publishing anything on your blog, optimise your URLs for:

  • Your readers
  • Search engines

It’s one of Google’s SEO best practices.

SEO-friendly URLs can be the push that puts you ahead of your competitors in search.

Let’s get into it.

What makes a SEO-friendly URL?

URL length:

  • Making URLs because they rank higher on Google’s search results pages

Keyword optimisation:

  • Using only one or two keywords in your URL, for a rankings boost

Readability:

  • Make URLs readable for better user experience and ranking

For multiple URLs with similar content:

  • Merge content into one URL or use the best option:
    • Canonical
    • Robots.txt
    • Noindex
    • X-Robots-Tag
    • Etc.

HTTP or HTTPS:

  • Use HTTPS and purchase a SSL certificate for better security and ranking signals

Subdomain or subfolder:

  • Use subfolders because subdomain:
    • Split domain authority
    • Are seen as separate website’s by search engines

TLD (Top Level Domain):

  • .com is seen as trusted with more authority but doesn’t influence rankings

Note: Use the right TLD, if .com is not used. Full list of TLD.

GTLDS (generic top level domains):

  • Can be geotargeted in Google search console
  • Not location specific

Note: Look at the full list of GTLDS.

RTLDS (regional top level domains):

  • Top level domains like .com or .org
  • Associated with a region
  • .eu
  • .asia

CCTLDS (country code top level domains):

  • Country specific top level domains

Note: Look at the full list of CCTLDS.

Folders:

  • Use a max of one to two folders per URL
  • Use descriptive names to help visitors and search engines know your page topic

Note: More folders mean search engines can’t figure out your page’s topic.

Dynamic URLs:

  • Avoid these because visitors can’t understand them

E-commerce URLs:

  • Optimise around one keyword so:
    • Your category page ranks
    • Search engines understand your product pages
  • Or remove categories and use simple product URLs

International or Language based URLs:

Country based TLD (top level domain) benefits:

  • Geotargeting
  • Easy to separate websites
  • Irrelevant server locations

But:

  • Expensive
  • More infrastructure
  • Might not be available

Country based subdomain benefits:

  • Easy to separate websites
  • Can use different server locations
  • Set up is simple
  • Works on Google search console geotargeting

But:

  • Might not geotargeting with URL alone

Country based subdirectories benefit:

  • Low maintenance
  • Set up is simple
  • Works on Google search console geotargeting

But:

  • Single server location
  • Hard to separate websites
  • Might not geotargeting with URL alone

Characters:

  • Use safe characters, not reserved or unsafe characters

Safe characters:

  • All letters of the alphabet
  • $
  • !
  • *
  • ?

Reserved characters:

  • $
  • &
  • +
  • ,
  • /
  • ;
  • :
  • ?
  • @

Note: If you must use these characters then encode them.

Unsafe characters:

  • (space)
  • “”
  • <
  • >
  • #
  • %

Note: Avoid these characters.