There are quite a few ranking factors that determine whether Google's going to rank you on the first page for any given keyword.
Over 200, in fact.
While SEO isn't a central concern for some businesses, others can get a lot of mileage out of organic search traffic.
The more eyes you can get on your content, the better — even if they're the eyes of leads at the very top of your sales funnel.
There's one big thing that a lot of online business owners do wrong, and it can cost you that juicy organic traffic.
They neglect to optimize their URL.
Are your URLs an ugly, unwieldy string of numbers?
If so, it's kind of a strike against you, as far as Google is concerned.
You want your URLs to be simple and readable.
Plus, it helps a lot to put your target keyword in there as well.
In a recent blog post, Neil Patel explains the value of a clean and simple URL structure.
Keep it simple and consistent
Think of search engines as those stable, consistent, and responsible individuals in life.
They don’t like too much excitement or change, nor do they like surprises.
They are looking for readability, steadiness, and consistency.
[image source: Neil Patel]
URLs are fundamentally classified into two basic types:
1. Static
2. Dynamic
Dynamic URLs change and include parameters. Static URLs stay the same as long as no changes are made within the HTML.
They are consistent — and when it comes to URL structure, consistency is key for ranking purposes.
As a result, you always want to shoot for static URLs over dynamic ones with parameters. So always opt for static, human-readable URLs like this:
Instead of this:
Another important factor to keep in mind when it comes to keeping things simple is the length of your URL.Use short URLs (the shorter the better), as they tend to rank higher on Google’s first page.
Shorter URLs enhance the user experience, instill trust in the web browser, and are optimized for sharing.
The recommended character length is listed at no longer than 2,083 characters max — and this is a generous number.
Ideally, you really don’t want them to be anywhere near this number.
Keeping it short and simple keep it memorable.
You can find more tips for URL best practices over at Neil Patel's blog.
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