A question that comes up often as companies rebrand or delve more into digital marketing is: should a URL have a branded name, company name or be keyword targeted? Below we take a look at each aspect and the best practices of choosing URLs.
What is a URL?
A URL, aka Uniform Resource Locator is what most people refer to as the “web address”. The URL is a string of characters that help browsers identify the website file location. Typically, the URL is located in the top of the browser in the ‘address bar’.
Should my URL be SEO friendly?
Yes. Ideally, everything dealing with your site should be SEO friendly. However, there are different ways of achieving optimization. So while, having a URL with keywords can be helpful in specific situations, you must keep in mind that in order to rank well and receive a high quality score with the search engines, a URL of your entire site should exemplify what a visitor will see on the website. Therefore, the main URL of your site should be more in line with your company name or brand as opposed to just the keywords.
Why choose your company name as your URL:
Often, searchers want to click on a trustworthy link. That means the link should have your name in it to increase clickthrough rates. Then make sure you have a killer meta description that outlines the keywords the web searcher may be looking for. For instance, if someone is searching for “coffee shop in Chicago”, and a search result comes with the two choices of “www.BestChicagoCoffeeEver.com” or “www.TheBrewCrew.com(as the actual company name)”, the clickthrough rate will be higher on the branded company name URL. Please note that if designing keyword URL’s, the rank of the URL may also be lower if the URL sounds to “gimmicky”. Another reason to have your company name as the URL is because you want to be easily found by customers searching for you. If your company is called “Bob’s Fences”, but your URL is www.Californiayardexperts.com you may lose visitors due to them not knowing how to find you or which link goes to your website.
How can you optimize URL’s?
- Utilize your pages to include URL’s that are specific to your services and products. Example: www.GreatHillsInsurance.com/PersonalQuotes
- Create blog posts to include keywords and search terms. This means your URL should look something like this: www.TinasYoga.com/blog/best-yoga-positions-to-practice-at-work
- If you have a large product that you want to focus on, create a URL for that product, and direct it or redirect it to a specific landing page pertaining to that product.
Feel free to leave a comment with your URL experiences and what has worked for you!
