What’s in a (URL) Name?
March 3rd, 2008 by Bernie | Filed under SEO.One of the most overlooked best practices in search engine optimization (SEO) involves naming a web page. Each website page which is optimized for good content has an opportunity (in SEO terms) to be named after the main theme of the page.
When search engines crawl your website they consider all factors to rate the quality of your content and links. One way to tell the search engines you care about your website visitors is by naming URLs using specific keywords.
Even competitive keywords can be optimized for good results, especially when combined with a keyword specific URL and a long tail keyword.
Here are two examples:
Find and Convert provides SEO services. While we market our services nationwide, to compete for the keyword “seo” is very difficult. So, one of the long tail keyword phrases we have optimized for is “seo services tampa” since we’re located in Tampa Bay. At the time of this blog post, our search engine listing is in the middle of page 1 in Google for this phrase with “seo” in the URL ranking on page 1.
SEO Services | Search Engine Website Optimization | SEO Site …
| Our SEO services start with a survey of your business and your marketing … We operate out of Tampa Bay, Florida and serve businesses from the east coast … www.findandconvert.com/seo.html - 47k - |
Another example is “outsourced medical transcription.” The number one position has “outsource” in the URL.
Medical Transcription Services Company Outsourcing, Medical …
| OSI a USA company providing medical transcription company services, HIPAA medical transcription medical billing outsourcing service, SEO copy writing … www.outsourcestrategies.com/ - 33k - |
Some website’s architecture (or content management system) does not allow specific naming of website URLs. That can be a very limiting factor. Website URLs with the exact name of the keyword phrase for which you want to be found can make a big difference, e.g., www.yourcompany.com/outsourced-medical-transcription-services.htm.
A similar idea is to buy domain names based on your most desirable keyword phrases. You may have to get creative, or buy long domain names. Don’t be afraid to buy domain names using hyphen separators like the example above. The way to make this a white hat (legitimate) tactic is to put original content on your new domain and link it back to your main website. Put this content and URL to work for you using ethical SEO practices through keyword-specific URLs. You just might see your search engine ranking positions (SERPs) increase significantly!
Tags: ethical SEO practices, search engine optimization, SEO, SERP, white-hat SEO
