URLs are not meant to be complex, they were created to be structured like a tree and branches, with each main section, being the start of a branch. Users naturally understand this, so organizing your URLs not only helps searchbots crawl your website, but also helps users find what they want a little easier. Url optimization is vital to user navigation as well, users are the whole purpose of a website, so make sure they can find their way back, if they get lost, and having easily memorable urls, is one way to do that.
Organization is the key, content siloing and categorical grouping will help to assist users and searchbots alike, navigate your website, and find the information they intended to. Organization shouldn’t stop with URL structure, your main menu optimization needs that same effort since it’s the same concept, more organized the layout, the easier information is to find. Shorter urls are better URLs, since users will remember them and so will your content team when internal linking is being done during web content editing.
URL Structure And Internal Linking
With an unorganized url structure, you run the risk of not keeping tracking of all your page urls, so when you change a major sub section of a url string, if everything isn’t nested as it should be, you could be missing urls and thus losing keyword ranking later on. URL optimization is important indirectly to website crawling, since if you’re url structure isn’t setup correctly, it’s easy to miss webpages to internally link together, allowing searchbots to crawl deeper into more relevant webpages that will help convey contextual relevancy much better.
This is why SEO is so difficult for many, it’s not just about the direct connections, it’s also about the indirect connections. Paying attention to how all aspects of a website operates and communicates to the internet, can open eyes to optimization opportunities. URL structure optimization is one of those factors that can directly and indirectly affect SEO, and if not paid attention to, can cost organic web traffic.
Is your website URL structure unorganized?