A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the string of characters you type into a web browser to visit a particular website or web page. When creating a small business website, understanding how to build SEO-friendly URLs is important.
Web page URLs can affect your search engine presentation, user experience, and branding. Here’s a straightforward guide to URL best practices.
Top 4 URL Recommendations
Here we look at best practices for URL paths. The path points to a specific resource on your website. For example, in the URL https://www.collaborada.com/blog/small-business-seo, “/blog/small-business-seo” is the path and points to an article on our website on the topic of small business SEO tips.
The most common URL issues we see can be solved by remembering these four tips:
1. Keep it Clear and Descriptive
A URL should give a clear idea of the content on the page. If a user can roughly predict the content of a page just by looking at the URL, you’re on the right track.
Yes: https://example.com/products/organic-tea
No: https://example.com/products/item12345
Keywords are important, but many small businesses misinterpret this suggestion and go overboard. You want to use keywords for clarity and user experience, as in the example above. Modern search engines do not need keyword-stuffed URLs to understand page content. To illustrate this point, we used a random URL “/blog/h0gw4sh” for an article about SEO misconceptions. The page was indexed and appearing for appropriate queries within a matter of hours on Google and Bing.
Local businesses will sometimes insert their location into every URL. Not only is this not necessary for local SEO, but someday you might move and wish you’d structured the site differently. For example, if you are a local Austin photographer offering multiple services including maternity photos, a simple URL is fine:
Yes: https://example.com/maternity
No: https://example.com/austin-maternity-photographer
If your business is multi-location, then yes you might have location URLs:
Yes: https://example.com/locations/austin
Apply common sense when structuring URLs. For example, if your brand name doesn’t include a reference to photography, you might prefer the URL below, but again this is for user experience versus “SEO” purposes:
Yes: https://example.com/maternity-photographer
There are exceptions and nuances to every “rule,” but in general Google is good at understanding what a page is about. You’ll see nonsense goobledygook URLs ranking just fine. And when this happens, Google even helps out by hiding the wonky URL path in the search engine result listing. Point being, Google does not need a keyword-stuffed URL to understand your page.
2. Limit URL Length
Search engines are fine with long URLs, but shorter ones are more user-friendly and easier to share. If a page URL seems overly long, consider how to trim it down. Lengthy URLs are common on blog posts because website builders often take your first attempt at a blog post title and use it to create the blog’s URL. Adjusting the URL should be a final step in your publishing process.
Yes: https://example.com/blog/preparing-tea
No: https://example.com/blog/tips-and-techniques-for-preparing-the-perfect-cup-of-tea-for-beginners
⚠️ IMPORTANT: You can ignore advice from SEO tools suggesting URLs should contain a certain number of words. If a URL is /recipe/chili, there is no need to change it to /recipe/best-spicy-texas-chili. Learn about good SEO tools.
3. Use Hyphens to Separate Words
Hyphens make a URL easier to read for users and are SEO-friendlier. Website builders such as Squarespace, Webflow, or Wix insert dashes by default, but many people misinterpret the “keep it short” advice and remove the hyphens.
Yes: https://example.com/blog/tea-benefits
No: https://example.com/blog/teabenefits
No: https://example.com/blog/tea_benefits
4. Make it Durable
Unless you are a news site, you likely don’t need dates in your URLs. Evergreen content should have long-lasting URLs that aren’t date-specific. Note, we owe the term “durable URL” to a 2018 SEJ post, the term sticks with clients so we use it.
Annual events also benefit from having a stable URL—this way the page address doesn’t change from year to year and it is always accessible. If you want to document information about an event for historical purposes, consider using a blog post.
Yes: https://example.com/fundraiser
No: https://example.com/2024-fundraiser
Blog post: https://example.com/news/2024-fundraiser
Implement 301 Redirects if Changing URLs
Should you clean up old URLs? You’ll want to analyze this on a case-by-case basis. If you ever do change a page’s URL, make sure you set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. This retains the SEO value and ensures users won’t face 404 errors.
Additional URL Best Practices for SEO
Most website builders used by SMBs handle the points below automatically, so these cause fewer issues for small businesses.
Avoid Capital Letters: URLs are case-sensitive. To avoid confusion and potential 404 errors, use lowercase letters throughout.
Yes: https://example.com/about-us
No: https://example.com/About-Us
Limit folders: Each slash ( / ) in your URL typically indicates a folder or directory. Too many can make a URL look complex and can impact SEO. Keep things simple.
Yes: https://example.com/blog/types-of-teas
No: https://example.com/blog/topics/tea/types-of-tea
Avoid special characters: Stay away from characters that can confuse browsers, bots, and users, such as &, !, $. Stick to alphanumeric characters and hyphens.
Secure your website: Every site should opt for https over http. The “s” stands for secure and users are increasingly security-conscious, seeing “https://” and a padlock symbol in the browser instills confidence in visitors. Browsers will flag non-secure sites as “Not Secure,” which can deter potential customers or visitors. Learn more about SSL certificates.
Conclusion
URLs are more than just web addresses. They play a part in your online branding, user experience, and search engine optimization. For any SMB aiming for growth, a proper URL structure is a simple, but effective step towards ensuring a smooth online journey for both users and search engines.
Related reading: Google’s URL Guide
