The url structure of your web pages or blog posts are important when it comes to SEO. It is a minor ranking factor that Google considers when deciding what pages to show in search results.

In this post I will give you some tips on how you should structure your urls (permalinks) when creating pages or blog posts.

1. Keep them short and sweet 

Even though your page title might be long, it is better to edit your URL to make it shorter and easier for search engines to understand. 

If you have your URLs too long, you run the risk of confusing Google as to what the page may be about.

Shorter URLs are also more likely to be shared by users as they are more tidy. 

2. Include the most relevant keywords in the URL

It is important to include the most relevant keywords in your URL as this will help Google and other search engines rank your page better. However, be careful not to use too many keywords (keyword stuffing) as Google and other search engines will recognise this and penalise you for doing so.

3. Make the URL easy to read 

Your URLs should be easily readable by humans. As a best practice, use dashes (or hyphens) in between words, avoid using weird characters or symbols, and keep letters in lowercase. 

4. Make sure it matches the content

You want the URLs to be relevant to the content on the page. The last thing you want is to provide a bad user experience. If someone reads the URL, they will expect that if they click, the content will be about what the URL suggests.

5. Avoid using numbers in the URL

If you have a post that has the title “5 things you should do to get better results” the 5 at the front should be removed from the url. This makes it easier in the future if you update the post and add, say, 2 more things. 

It is easy to change the page title to say “7 things…”, but for the URL, changing the 5 to 7 would make it a new url, in which case the old link will be broken. If it has already been indexed by search engines or other sites are linking to the post, that would be a problem. However, if you do this you will have to set up an automatic redirect from the old url to the new one.

In Summary

URL structure is important for both search engines and humans to know what your page is about. 

Using the tips I’ve mentioned will help you rank better in search engines and also help you get better click-through rates as users see relevance across the board when combined with the page title and the search query they put in.