If you’re redesigning an existing site, you may be stuck with certain aspects of the old architecture – one of which is probably the site address or URL. If you have the opportunity to build your company’s website from the ground up, however, the URL is up to you – and that’s a good thing!
The URL you’ll use for your website isn’t a frivolous decision. It has a significant impact on how your customers perceive you and how easy your web address is to remember, as well as how search engines will rank your site and how they will present it to potential customers.
Before purchasing a URL for your website, be sure to consider the following:
- Keywords: First and foremost, it’s important to include appropriate keywords in your URL. Whateveryou’re willing to invest in SEO research to find the best keywords for your site copy, it’s best to do so before you choose the URL, so you can use that information to pick a web address. (A company called Blue Caboose that sells children’s shoes might be better served with a URL like www.childshoe.com than www.bluecaboose.com) website-attraction
- Smart sections: It’s not enough to have an intuitive, original URL for your company. You also need to think about the unique subpages or sections of your website, and what they will display as their URL. This component has less to do with your site address itself and more to do with the software you use to design the website. Some site design platforms result in pages with long query strings, which are indexed negatively by search engines. For SEO purposes, it’s much better to have subpages that use keywords. (e.g. www.childshoe.com/toddler is a much better choice than www.childshoe.com/content.html?category=4&orderby=1) website-copy-writing
- Duplication: If you’ve been reading up on SEO, you might already know that duplicate content is frowned upon by search engines. If you post content to both your business blog and your personal blog, you’ll be penalized for the duplication by a lower search engine ranking. By the same token, stolen content devalues your site (whether you plagiarized it or someone else stole the content from you). This also extends to sites that have multiple URLs with identical content, which means that it’s best to stick to one URL and create totally unique copy for your pages. If you must have the same or similar content on two different sites, it’s best to rewrite it so search engines won’t penalize you. website-visitors
Ready to choose a URL and start building your website? Before you begin, contact us today for more practical SEO advice.
Posted in SEO / SEM