Website Optimisation and Your URLs

Over the last couple of weeks we have been looking at the various onsite factors your need to work on for website optimisation. Today we will focus on your website URLs and what you need to do to ensure your site is properly set up for the search engines.

The first thing to remember is that search engines read and interpret the words that they come across. This is not done in the same way as a person but the principal is the same. Basically if you use words that mean something to human beings then they will probably mean something to the search engines.

The Wrong Thing To Do

I see hundreds of thousands of websites out there that get it all wrong for SEO and one of the biggest mistakes they make is the URLs. How many websites have you seen that when you go to a page the URL that appears in the navigation bar contains numbers and symbols that mean absolutely nothing to you? When you see this you get no information about the page you are on and so it is no surprise that the search engines don't understand this form of coding either.

If your website is set up in this way then you really want to get it changed as soon as possible to ensure you can have your website in the best possible state for top rankings.

What you Need to Do

Well the first thing to know is that the search engines put a lot of weight on the URL of a web page and so it is important to get it right. If you have looked into search engine optimisation then you will know the search engines use at least 200 factors to rank your website and determine where it should be. One of the more important factors is the URL of your pages and so this cannot be ignored.

To decide on your URLs you should do your research first. For each of your pages analyse the keywords you want to use for each and every page. You should then construct your URLs based on this. For example on our website if you look at the URLs you will see some significance in each of them. For example our web development page contains web development in the URL.

When the search engines visit your web pages they will read the URL that you have selected for each page and take note of it. If you use your keywords in the URL then the search engines will see this and think that this is the topic your web page is about. Obviously you then need to back this up with the content on each of your pages. It is really important with the search engines to keep consistency. It is this consistency that helps the search engines to build trust with you and confirms to them what each of your pages are about.

So basically if you start with your URLs and then build your content to match including titles and headers then you will be a long way towards well optimised web pages. Never ignore the importance of your URLs as you will see the sites that appear at the top of the search engines tick all of the boxes and do not ignore any of the factors.