Search-friendly URLs

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.