MANY webmasters know that the wording within a website address is important when it comes to getting your keywords right.
The website address (also known as URL or file name) is something that search engines ‘read’ among other things to determine the content on the web page.
Consider your domain name first
If you haven’t named your website already, it’s worthwhile considering trying to include keywords in your domain name. However, that’s not the purpose of this article.
Your home page has to be called something like index.html to indicate which page should be loaded first.
You do, however, need to create as many other ‘entrance’ pages to your website as possible. This will reduce the reliance on your website being found through search engines solely through a single set of keywords on one page.
Research your keywords
As mentioned in a previous article you need to first of all use the Overture Keyword Selector Tool to determine the keyword phrase for your new web page. Again, as mentioned previously, be careful not to aim for a phrase that is too popular.
Name your new web page correctly
Once you’ve chosen your keyword phrase, that’s what you need to name the web page that you’re writing.
Apply the same principle to all your files
Unless for some reason you don’t want search engines to find your files, every file – including PDF’s and images should be named with keyword phrases in mind. Going back to multiple entrances for your website, focusing on optimising your file names will help you create and increased number of entrance paths to your website for your visitors.
An example of naming images effectively
The logo for the web page, PurpleInternetMarketing.com, is called Internet-Marketing-Training-LOGO.gif. This helps to maximise the relevancy of the page in the ‘eyes’ of search engines for the keyword phrase ‘Internet Marketing Training’.
A word of warning
As in all areas of ‘search engine optimisation’, there is a grey line between under-optimising and over-optimising.
For example, if each URL contained the same keyword phrase two or three times, then this might mean that some search engines treat the page as being overly-inflated in relevance. In this instance, the page may well be ‘demoted’ by a certain percentage in search engine rankings.
Although search engines may be ‘fooled’ for a while from your excessive URL optimising, your short-term gain may lead to long-term loss.
Optimise your URL’s, yes. But don’t overly-optimise them. Try and keep them to two or three word phrases.
Contact David Bain at www.PurpleInternetMarketing.com
Tomorrow: The PurpleInternet Marketing series: The ten biggest search engine optimisation Mmstakes – No.8: Not enough content.
