Is my URL structure ideal?
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Thanks everyone. This was very helpful. I will NOT include the state abbreviation. Ryan - I have an uppercase letter in every word. I will go ahead and format everything so that only lowercase letters are used. Thanks!
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Simon and Yannick both offer good advice. One item I would add, it is a best practice to only use lower case letters in your URLs. If you do make a change, switch to all lower case letters as well.
I would also not ever change a URL in an attempt to stuff a keyword into it. URLs beyond the domain name are a very very low ranking factor. I would more likely want to change from your proposed URL to your current URL rather then vice-versa. In all likelihood, you can change your URL to mydomain/page=10 and it wont change your ranking.
To be clear, your current URL structure is desirable mostly because it is easy for people to read which can benefit CTR, and if someone links to your site using the URL they will include your important keywords. It may be a ranking factor but think of it as 0.001% type of thing which is not likely to ever make a difference. Your loss of link juice from the redirect is more impacting then such an incredibly minor change.
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Hi Alexander, a good question.
I'm not sure it will benefit yourself or your visitors by adding in a State element such as FL to your URL structure. Main reason being 'semantic search', Google will know that FL means Florida and vice versa.
The actual decision probably lies with your keyword research, as in what the differences tend to be in search volumes between States and State Abbreviations for your main target keyword searches.
The shorter option without eg. FL looks neater from a user experience perspective, slightly easier to read. So long as you optimise the on-page well such as Titles, Descriptions, H1 tags etc then you'll be able to cater for both with the shorter URL.
Hope that helps, Regards, Simon
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Hi there Alexander
Personally i would look at the following seeing that you want to have areas in your service at urls'.
mydomain.com/Florida/surety-bonds/Contractor-License-Bond/
That way you can build relevance over the area for other services too such as below if you know what i mean
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The only thing you might want to change in your site/url structure is drill down to city level. If applicable? Don't live in the US so...
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My title structure is properly in place. I just want to make sure there's nothing additional I can do since we are addressing URL Keywords today.
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I'd put more effort in constructing the perfect title tag than the perfect url's. What you are talking about isn't really structure, it is more like: what to put in the url's.
Simply use the first url you mentioned. And in the title mention Florida Contractor license bond.
So the FL will not make any difference. Just make sure you mention it in your title and on-page of course, because that will help!
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