Designing URL's

I can here the cries already, “You don’t design URL’s, they’re just identifiers.”

Well, you’re wrong, they are not just identifiers, they are a part of your UI, they can increase or decrease your CTR. They are a major tool in your SEO arsenal.

Let’s take a closer look.

We’re all used to clean URL’s by now. Clean, semantic and descriptive.

www.example.com/?p=123

Changes to:

www.example.com/about-us/

Much better, don’t you think?

How does this increase CTR?

Ok, let’s do an example.

I did a quick Google search for “Computer Desk” and this result from Argos returned:

www.argos.co.uk/static/Browse/ID72/33015967/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7CHome+and+Garden%7C33005908/c_2/2%7C33005908%7CStorage,+desks+and+filing%7C33008937/c_3/3%7Ccat_33008937%7CDesks+and+workstations%7C33015967.htm

No, my cat didn’t run over my keyboard, that is a real URL.

Users are much less likely to click through from a link like that. It’s not descriptive and looks like SPAM.

Let’s clean it up.

www.argos.co.uk/home-garden/office/desks-workstations/

Now in a search engine result you can see exactly what the URL is about and have a good idea of what you will see when clicking on it.

What about SEO?

Okay, let’s look back at our URL example.

The first URL tells a search engine spider exactly the same as it tells a human, absolutely nothing.

The second URL however, tells both humans and search engines what the page is about. It also breaks down into a series of relevant search terms:

• Home and Garden
• Office
• Desks and Workstations
• Home
• Garden
• Office
• Desks
• Workstations

Conclusion.

So there you have it. Designing URL structures. It’s not hard, doesn’t take long and has great benefits.

Improve user experience, increase CTR & enhance your SEO.