If you want to cover your bases and make sure that you are seriously promoting your online content, then pull all out of your SEO (search engine optimization) stops. From meta tags to alt tags; from H1 tags to H3 tags or just tags in general there are about a dozen key items to focus on to drive your copy from page 3 to page 1.
One key but often overlooked SEO tactics is to optimize your content URLs for your readership and the search engines. There are some content creators (including some in Toronto) that miss this important SEO opportunity so, here are a few tips and why they are important.
Key-SEO-for-URLs
- Include a keyword related to your content.
- Separate-words-with-hyphens.
- Keep URLs short and relevant by removing unnecessary words
- Structure to get the click
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> Put keywords in your URLs to make page your content obvious. Every piece of content should have a target keyword and related LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords. LSI keywords are basically synonyms for the main keyword and help avoid keyword stuffing.
> Try to put the target keyword first, to alert Google and search engines to the right subject matter. This isn’t mandatory but putting the complete key phrase early in the title can help to rank content faster.
> Sub-directories and sub-categories in your URLS can provide useful information to both reader and the search engines. It also adds to the relevance of the content and can leader a reader to digging deeper into the site.
> Always-separate-words-in-the-url-with-hyphens. This makes it easy to read at a glance. Remember that you only get a couple of seconds to get a decision about the click so make it as easy and quick to get the gist of your post.
> Keeping a URL short means remove unnecessary connecting words. A long URL not only looks unprofessional but can reduce your click-thru rate. Remove as many words as you can while still retaining the context and meaning of the title.
For example with the title “3 Tips to Improve Your Business Blogging Results” could be www.yoursite.com/3-tips-improve-business-blogging-results. Notice ‘to’ and ‘your’ were removed because they didn’t add anything critical to the meaning of the title of the content.
> Create a strong keyword focused headline title and then rework it to present a clean content URL that demonstrates content and promotes a click-thru.
Why are URLS important? Because they are the part of on-page SEO that not only communicates effectively to search engines but also improves your click-through and bounce rates.
And if a reader gets accurate information from your title and URL structure they are more likely to click and read your content.
These simple steps towards creating effective URLS are just one more technique for your SEO marketing tool box. And they will help you communicate better with your readers and search engines.
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