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The page URL optimisation relates to the optimisation of the links displayed in search results alongside the Page Title and Meta Description, making it one of the most important organic ranking factors. Although more limited in their wording than other onpage elements, they can add additional layers of information to the context of the landing page it represents.
Just like in the case of Page Titles and Meta Descriptions, Page URLs rely on keywords to help the search engines determine what a landing page is about. So naturally, URL optimisation must be informed by Keyword Research in parallel with the other onpage elements.
URL Structure vs URL Slugs Optimisation
However, URLs also assume a unique role among the on-page elements by communicating website structure to both users and search engines. This is achieved through the URL structure, which is optimised independently of the landing page URL slug. URL Structure Optimisation must align with the website’s information architecture through its taxonomy by ensuring:
- Hierarchical Reinforcement: The URL structure reinforces the website’s information architecture, using a clear taxonomy to define each landing page’s hierarchical position.
- Cohesive Context: Every URL on the website fits cohesively into this structure, providing context regarding the page’s relationship to the wider website content.
When discussing both URL structure and URL slugs, it is most commonly assumed that the conversation applies exclusively to static URLs. Static URLs are permanent web addresses that remain unchanged, unless manually altered. Neither URL Slugs Optimisation, nor URL Structure Optimisation reflects on the use of Dynamic URLs, which a topic explored separately in SEO.
Static vs Dynamic URLs Optimisation
The static URLs and dynamic URLs are as much alternative as they are complementary alternatives to organising landing pages. The key distinguishing feature of dynamic URLs is that they change depending on user input, such as a button press, a tickbox selection, or a search query. Dynamic URLs employ as a set of instructions for the website’s database to retrieve and display specific data on a template page, rather than point to a unique, permanent file.
Dynamic URLs are most commonly employed in:
- Faceted navigation (i.e. e-commerce websites)
- Website search function
- Analytics tracking
The SEO implications of using dynamic URLs are unique, as is the required technical expertise to understand and manage them effectively, which is why Dynamic URLs Optimisation is a topic in its own right.
Writing Optimised URLs
Along with Page Titles, Page URLs are used by search engines in determining what landing pages to show for what keywords. So above all, the Page URL must be descriptive of the landing page it represents and in line with the Page Title and Meta Description for that page. This implies that the choice of what keywords to use for what landing pages must be driven by the same keyword research process used to define the Page Titles and Meta Descriptions.
Depending on the Landing Page, one must consider such Keyword Metrics as Organic Rankings, Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty, estimated click-through rate and Traffic Potential to make judgements on what keywords to give preference to over others.
URL Use of Words, Numbers, CAPs, Characters and Symbols
Depending on the website’s ability to outrank its SERP competition, the URL should use the head terms the Landing Page is targeting, preferably in a concise manner. In the case of two similar URL options, all things being equal, the version featuring the most important keywords at the beginning should be preferred to that featuring them at the end.
One of the most important characteristics of a URL is timeliness/timelessness. When specifying a URL, it is not only important for it to be relevant but also to remain relevant further down the line. Although the use of dates in URLs is allowed, having a date in the URL is only relevant when one of the most important aspects of the landing page is, in fact, that the landing page relates to that date/month/year timeframe. The easiest way to determine whether there is any value in having a date in the URL is to understand whether the head keywords for the landing page it represents are searched in conjunction with a date.
This is often the case for events or time-bound information. Having said this, if a landing page contains information which is not necessarily time-bound, having a date in the URL (such as a publishing date) is more likely to subtract rather than add value to the URL. The publishing date is important and is, in fact, understood and used by search engines in determining what pages to show and when. However, the URL is not the best place to feature it in.
URLs are case-sensitive, meaning a single capital letter in a URL can result in a Duplicate Page. This is why it is generally recommended for all URLs to use only lowercase letters, even for acronyms which are normally written in uppercase letters. Ensuring all URLs are lowercase from the very beginning can save a fair amount of work down the line, when duplication issues would require each URL using uppercase letters to be redirected, while the use of redirects themselves not being being implication-free for SEO.
The use of non-English characters in the URLs of non-English websites is allowed and in most cases, should be encouraged. Even though non-english characters would require to be encoded, major search engines can recognise, crawl and rank web pages based on words containing them. So, if one expects users to search for keywords containing non-English characters, it is only normal to make appropriate use of them in URLs.
Traditionally, the space in-between the words within URLs was filled by either hyphens [-] or underscores [_], however the hyphen [-] now occupies the space of the only recommended option. The reason behind this is that at the moment the major search engines are programmed to read the hyphens [-] as word separators, while the underscores [_] as a means of combining words. The use of underscores [_], however, should be discouraged altogether.
When it comes to URLs, not all characters are born equal. It begins with a group called unreserved characters. As a starting point, the most commonly used characters in URLs are alphanumerics (a-z and 0-9). There’s also a small number of additional special characters including the hyphen [-] used to separate words, the underscore [_] used to combine words, the dot [.] and the almost equals sign [~]. These symbols also do not require encoding, which means that all URLs written using these characters will appear in browsers exactly as they are written on the backend.
On the other end, there are reserved characters, which possess a reserved technical purpose within a URL. This is most commonly found in the practice of automatically-generated URLs. In other words, their appearance in a specific part of the URL has the technical capacity to change its semantics. The full list of reserved characters include: ! * ‘ ( ) ; : @ & = + $ , / ? % # [ ]. Reserved characters can be used without encoding, but only when employed for their reserved purpose.
The Forward Slash [/] reserved purpose
The character with arguably the most important reserved use in URLs is the forward-slash [/], used to employ subfolders [/subfolder/] in storing landing pages. In simple terms, forward slashes [/] enable all URLs to be part of a hierarchy, by delimiting separate entities on a website from each other. An entity that is contained between 2 forward slashes [/] in a URL is called a Sulbfolder or Subdirectory [/subdirectory/], while the last entity that is contained within one or multiple Subdirectories is called a Landing Page.
Some subdirectories can employ the role of landing pages. In other words, while the URL subdirectory [/subdirectory/] serves as the portion of the URL that precedes the portion of the landing page [/sub..ry/landing-page-1], it may also host a langing page of its own [/subdirectory/landing-page-1]. Also, cases where forward slashes are also used at the end of the Landing Page portions of the URL […/landing-page-1/] are not infrequent and have recently started to become best practice.
Technical aspects aside, the notable difference between a subdirectory and a landing page is the fact that Subdirectories are employed to usually store multiple landing pages, the content of which have related semantic meaning.
The hash sign [#] reserved purpose
An important feature in URLs is triggered by the use of hashes [#], which normally indicates not only the location of the page but also a specific location within the page itself, such as a header or the beginning of a paragraph on that page. This is particularly useful for information-heavy websites, which may require to accommodate hyperlinks to specific paragraphs or sections of text as opposed to the entire landing page. For this reason, the use of hashes can only be used for this purpose and this purpose only.
The content of such URLs with hashes [#] in them is not indexed, as the content is considered to already be part of the larger web page (held by the URL without the hash [#]). This prevents duplication issues from happening but also means this function must be used according to its intended purpose of showing a location within a page and by no means in any other way.
Only alphanumerics, the additional special characters [- _ . ~] and the reserved characters used for their reserved purposes may be used without the need to be encoded. All other characters (including reserved characters used outside their reserved purpose) need to be encoded in order to be used in URLs. URL encoding (percentage encoding) stands for the replacement of characters with one or more character triplets that consist of the percent character [%] followed by two hexadecimal digits. For instance, when using the ampersand [&], which is a reserved character, as an abbreviation for “and” (which is a purpose other than the reserved purpose), one must encode them accordingly [%26].
Optimal URL lengths
Similarly, given the more restrictive nature of URLs, it is generally advised to keep them as short as possible, providing just enough information to understand the context of the Landing Page it represents on the website. As a general rule, this shortening should be attained by avoiding using superfluous words that do not add immediate value, like prepositions and conjunctions. It can also be achieved by avoiding the repetition of keywords that are already present in the categories and subcategories of the URL path.
A general recommendation is to keep the length of any given subdirectory or landing page URL segment within three words. The reason behind this is that the length of the URL can soar exponentially with each additional subdirectory it becomes a part of. So not only does it affect the risk of the URL being truncated in search results, but also becomes unintelligible to users who are less likely to rely on it to make a decision about the context of the landing page it represents.
In fact, there is a negative correlation between the length of a URL and organic search rankings, meaning that all things being equal, shorter URLs are more likely to rank in organic search results. There are a number of technical and practical considerations that make the length of a URL a topic of its own. From a technical point of view, URLs must be shorter than 2,083 characters in order to correctly render in all browsers. However, in order for a page URL to display fully in SERPs, as opposed to it being truncated, its length should be within the limits of 512 pixels. The actual number of characters will, of course, vary as some characters spread over more pixels than others. A general estimate for URLs to fully display in SERPs would fall at around 50 to 60 characters.
Optimising the Page URL in WordPress
As outlined, there are quite a number of things to consider when optimising URLs, but URL structure is mostly set up once and then reused across your publishing. There is one single thing that you will have to optimise every time you publish a new Page or Post and that is the URL slug or the last portion of the URL in the URL path.
Editing the URL Slug in WordPress
You can specify the URL Slug using the default WordPress Settings for the Page or Post. Just open the Page or Post Settings on the right-side of your Top Toolbar and find “Slug“, under the “Page” Settings.
Once you edit the URL Slug, you will seee how it fits within the Permalink, which will also show the other elements of the URL.
- The protocol
- Preferred / canonical domain
- Domain name + Extension
- Subdirectories
You can also edit the URL Slug using the “Quick Edit” feature on the “All Pages” or “All Posts“. Just find the Page or Post > “Quick Edit‘ > Slug.
Employing the RankMath SEO plugin for editing URLs
One such tool for editing metadata, including the URL, is RankMath that also allows a Preview of the URL as seen in the Google SERPs. This is useful for writing URLs of just the right length and testing them right in the editing window.
Installing Rankmath
After you’ve installed the Rankmath SEO plugin, you will need to click the Rankmath icon in the top-right corner of your view. Upon click, your Rankmath editor will likely appear below your content field the first time around. It is recommended to drag it to the top-right corner of your screen from below the content editing area.
Specifying the URL using Rankmath directly in the Page or Post view
Visit the Page or Post you want to specify the URL for.
- Click on the “RankMath” icon in the top right corner to see the following panel.
- The “General” tab is pre-selected by default and will display your current URL (if any) alongside your Page Title and Meta Description, the way they’re visible in Google Search.
- Click “Edit Snippet” to open the “Preview Snippet Editor” which will allow you to edit your URL.
As you make edits, the RankMath Preview section will display in real-time how your Meta Description will look like in Google SERPs. This presents a great opportunity to ensure your Meta Description is of the right length.
If you have certain target keywords set up within the “Focus Keyword” section of Rankmath, these will be highlighted in bold for Meta Descriptions as well as Page Titles and URLs, exactly the way you would expect for them to be highlighted in Google Search when users search for those particular keywords.
Do not attempt to create subdirectories using the URL Slug field
- You will be editing only the URL Slug of the page, which could be placed under one or several subdirectories. Although they can be selected, they can not be edited from this view.
- Do not attempt to create subdirectories using the URL slug field by adding forward slashes (/). If you do need a new subdirectory for the page you’re working on, follow the proper subdirectory set-up process to prevent SEO issues in the future.
The last entry of the URL slug will take presedence across all methods
Unlike in the case of the other onpage elements, it doesn’t matter what method you use for writing the URL Slug. The last entry you put in, either in WordPress’ default URL Slug field or Rankmath’s field, will overwrite what you have specified earlier using any other method.
Handling Mobile URLs
With the increased demand for websites that cater to mobile users came the question of how to better structure them. If initially mobile websites were placed on a “m.” subdomain, in more recent times it became obsolete, all thanks to responsive design which allows the use of a single URL for both mobile and desktop websites.