When developing a website it’s all too easy to focus on aesthetic
design and content. These certainly are important factors but so, too, is the
site’s strategy. How you construct your website URLs will have a direct
operational impact, and this design aspect should not be overlooked.
On many websites, URL structure is determined by the web developer
and could look, for example, like: [company name].net/
files.asp?id=12adbe456&session=wertybr. Compare this with the “Contact Us”
page of AGUK’s website, which is located at aguk.net/contact/. This is a nice
short and easy to understand URL. You may think the contrast insignificant but,
take my word for it, the benefits of a simple URL structure are substantial.
Here are some of the advantages.
Easier Inbound
Links
You want to encourage visitors to link to the content on your
website at every opportunity. This becomes even more imperative as users share
links on websites such as twitter, FaceBook and other social networking
systems. If your URL is too long it makes it difficult to paste into these
applications. Worse still, if your website relies on user sessions within the
URL, (your developer will understand this but it is basically to track and
identify visitors), then it may be impossible to link to a sub page on your
website.
Simpler to
Describe
If you are referring someone to the page they need on your website,
whether over the phone or in person, it is much easier to describe a simple URL
than one that contains a lengthy and complex string of letters and numbers.
Better Search
Engine Results
Creating a URL structure where the page address also describes the
content can improve your search engine rank. We have previously covered the
topic of SEO, which can be accessed through our Blog.
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