Benefits of adding keywords to site structure?
-
Hello fellow Mozzers,
This is kind of a hypothetical, but it might have implications for future projects. Do you think there would be any benefits (or drawbacks) to placing pages of a site into a directory named after a keyword?
For example, if I had a local store that sold hockey equipment, and "hockey", "equipment", and "hockey equipment" were the main targets being optimized for, would it be better (assuming the actual pages were the same) to structure the site as
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/about-us/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-skates/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-sticks/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/blog/
or
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/about-us/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-sticks/
- hypotheticalwebsite.com/hockey-equipment/blog/
Additionally, would any of this change if the root domain or the individual pages ALSO used those keywords (or if both of them used it)?
- pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/skates/
- pseudonyms-penalty-box.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/
- pseudonyms-hockey-gear.com/hockey-equipment/hockey-skates/
I've got a hunch that some of these are overkill, but I'm not sure where the scale tips from helpful to negligible to actively counterproductive.
Thanks, everyone!
-
Thanks, this is what I had figured, but I wasn't 100% sure.
I suppose using /hockey-equipment/about-us/ was a bit of an exaggerated example, but what about a more subtle/practical implementation? Specifically, do you think it would make any noticeable difference between using, say...
- domain.com/about-us/ (and /contact/ and anything else that's obviously NOT equipment)
- domain.com/hockey-equipment/skates/ (and /sticks/ and other stuff that is actually equipment)
vs
- domain.com/about-us/ (and /contact/ and anything else that's obviously NOT equipment, same as above)
- domain.com/hockey-skates/ (exact same page as would be on /hockey-equipment/skates/)
- domain.com/hockey-sticks/
I assume that at this level, it becomes a "6 of one, half a dozen of the other" situation, but again, not 100% sure.
-
Got to agree with Patrick - the first URL's look normal and the others look simply odd.
Remember your site is for humans as well as search engines.
-
Hi there,
To me, the first batch seem much more natural and less spammy. I can't figure out why you would want to put an "About Us" under "hockey-equipment".
Take a look at these couple of resources:
Information Architecture for SEO
URL Best PracticesMy fear here is that you could potentially overdo your keywords in your URLs and trip spam filters, so really think about what's important to the structure and categories of the site, as well as the user experience and how users are searching to get to your site.
This answer may be a bit broad, but there some fundamental issues you should read into quick to better guide your structure so you're not in trouble down the road. Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best practice for local keyword ranking in URLs
Hi, I have a large artificial grass website with many franchise location landing pages. At the moment i have most of the landing page URLs like this www.domainname.com/uk/city/ My TLD does not contain the keyword "artificial grass" so should I follow the location with the keywords /city-artificial-grass/ or is Google pretty savvy these days and will it know that I am an artificial grass company? I'm after the best recommendations for this if possible. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Easigrass0 -
I've submitted my site to google search console, and only 6 images of 89 images have been indexed in 2 weeks. Should I be worried?
I've submitted my site to google search console, and only 6 images of 89 images have been indexed in 2 weeks. Should I be worried? My site is http://bayareahomebirth.org Images are a pretty big part of this site's content and SEO value. Thanks for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | mattchew0 -
Google can't discern the identity of my site
I have a website, http://NewYorkJazzEvents.com, that promotes jazz bands that are available for brides looking to hire a jazz band to perform at their wedding, or event planners looking to hire a jazz band to perform for a corporate event, etc. This identity, that my site is an Entertainment Agency, is made clear by all of the content on my site, as well as all of the content on its associated sites (such as its linked Facebook, YouTube, and Google Business pages, and many local citations). Yet, contrary to all of this data, the mere presence of the word "events" in my URL and business name has led Google to believe that my site is a Live Jazz Guide, i.e., a site that lists public performances of jazz groups in New York City. The problem, then, is that Google displays the site when people search for local events listings, and not when they search for jazz bands to contract for private events. For example, do a search for "jazz bands new york" and up pops the listings for sites catering to searchers looking to hire bands for private events, like Gigmasters, Gigsalad, right at the top of the list, followed by lots of individual bands. My site is buried (in my results, anyway), on the middle of page 2. (My paid Adwords ad, on the other hand, shows up at the top of paid ads.): https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv4we4gvnb6wkyb/Screenshot%202016-04-11%2019.22.40.png?dl=0 Now do a search for "new york jazz events." Boom! I'm #1 in the natural results, and, unlike in the search for "new york jazz band," my Google plus page and map (or is it the "knowledge graph"?) display right at the top of the right column: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nob24x1b8u1g4or/Screenshot%202016-04-11%2019.18.49.png?dl=0. (Pretty useless to people searching for live jazz listings in New York, though.) (This, by the way, is an additional related frustration: why does Google display all of its local information (its map, links to my Google reviews, etc.) next to my site listing when people are searching for events, but but hides this valuable information next to my site listing when people are search for jazz bands (when my site comes up on page 2)?) For a further confirmation of Google's confusion, see this data from Google that indicates the top search queries that it is using to display my site are centered around searches for local live jazz listings: Google Search Console > Search Traffic > Search Analytics > Queries: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t8blxv6a077iuw6/Screenshot%202016-03-07%2012.28.38.png?dl=0 See also see this data from Google that indicates that it see "events" (which it understands as local live jazz listings) rather than "new york jazz bands" as the essential keyword describing the identity of the site: Google Search Console > Google Index > Content Keywords: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6nk6skfgx9zjzgc/Screenshot%202016-03-07%2012.46.04.png?dl=0 It's been this way for several years. I thought Google was supposed to be smart, but it's pretty dumb in this case (all the other search engines, including Bing, are quite a bit more intelligent). All this trouble, essentially from a word within a URL? Does anyone have an idea of the cause of this issue, and any potential cures? What can I do to clear up Google's confusion?
Local Website Optimization | | ChuckBraman0 -
Structuring URLs of profile pages
First of all, I want to thank everyone for the feedback that I received on the first question. My next question has to do with the URL structure of personal trainer profiles pages on www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com. Currently, the structure of each trainer profile page is "www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com/personal-trainers/trainer/" and at the end I manually add the trainer's "city-firstname-lastinitial". Would it be to my benefit to have the developers change the structure so that the trainer profile URLs are "www.rightfitpersonaltraining.com/city-personal-trainers/trainername"? That way, each trainer profile would link directly to the trainer's city page as opposed to the general "personal-trainers" page. I don't mind paying a little extra to go back into the site to make these changes, as I think they would benefit the search ranking for each city page.
Local Website Optimization | | mkornbl20 -
Schema for same location on multiple sites - can this be done?
I'm looking to find more information on location/local schema. Are you able to implement schema for one location on multiple different sites? (i.e. - Multiple brands/websites (same parent company) - the brands share the same location and address). Also, is schema still important for local SEO? Thank you in advance for your help!
Local Website Optimization | | EvolveCreative0 -
Single sites per location as well as group site. Should we get rid of single sites & only keep group site.
Currently we have several single sites for each of our dealership locations as well as an automotive group site linking to each location(dealership) website. Currently there is no landing page for each location on the group site. To save money we were looking into beefing up our group site and getting rid of our individual location sites. 301 redirecting them to location landing pages on the group site website. Each site has about the same authority including the group site. Each dealership location resides in the same province(state) but some locations are a 7hour drive apart so not all within the same vicinity. I want to ensure we continue to rank well in each location. I won't be able to include all geographic locations in the title tag on the homepage of the group site due to the character restrictions. What would you recommend? Keeping the individual websites per dealership location OR focusing solely on a group website. I need to ensure we continue to rank well in each city where each dealership resides. Thanks for any recommendations! It's greatly appreciated. Thanks for everyone's thoughts & opinions.
Local Website Optimization | | DCochrane1 -
HELP, My site have more than 40k visits by day and the server is down, I do not want all this visits...
Hello... I have a website for a local spa in ecuador, this website have a blog with some tips about health... and suddenly one of the articles goes viral on south america profiels on FB and I am receiving 40k visits by day from other countries that are not interested to me because my site is for a local bussines in ecuador... I already block some countries by IP , but Im still receiving visits from other south america countries, for this reason My hosting server company put down my website and I can not put it back online beacuse this thousands of visits use more than the 25% of the CPU of the server and the hosting company put down my website again... I really need to know what to do, I do not want to pay for a expensive special server because all this visits from other countries are not interesting to me .and as I said before my bussines is local.
Local Website Optimization | | lans27872 -
Sites Verification Issues
We have a group of automotive dealerships by a website provider that causes issues when trying to verify our sites. Because they use Analytics for their data program, they install a code into our websites-stopping us from doing so properly in our back end. We also cannot verify ourselves in webmasters or adwords. We can't actually "own" any of our sites since they run a java query script from within the website. They also do not allow the use of iframes or scripts, so we can't even use the container to verify these sites. Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated as I am sure there is some way to break this to get our data and be verified.
Local Website Optimization | | spentland0