When promoting a site, you must understand the features of ranking formation and the mechanisms for achieving high places in the search results. And, of course, you know how important links are. Chances are, you’ve already been looking for backlinks and learned a lot of link building tips for local promotion. However, buying links is not enough because not only their presence on other resources is essential, but also the structure. With the right link, you can improve your site’s performance and get better rankings as a result. In this article, we will analyze in detail how to do this.

What is a URL Slug?

Even those new to SEO know the term slug. Many masters talk about their importance and the necessary optimization. But what is the slug in a URL? This part of the web address is unique to each page and readable by users and search engines.

For example, let’s say you have a website called example.com. Links to all your pages will begin with example.com, followed by a text pointing to a specific section. Everything placed after the “/” sign is a slug. Let’s say you wrote an article about slugs, and the URL is https://www.example.com/what-is-slug. In this case, the slug is the title of the article placed in the address, i.e., what-is-slug.

This is a unique address, and no other page can have the same URL. Now that you understand what a slug is, you need to understand whether it is relevant for you and whether you need to pay attention to its optimization.

Why Use-Friendly Slug is Important

Search algorithms do not care which address to index. Even a meaningless set of letters and numbers will not become an obstacle for them. Still, crawlers aren’t everything you have to care about because you should not forget about users. Your audience will perceive readable links much better than a simple sequence of characters.

Such an address increases visitors’ confidence, facilitating interaction with resources and searching for information. Creating a human-readable URL slug is one of the best practices for improving ranking factors. Google experts recommend using only informative addresses because they speed up indexing and help robots determine the page’s relevance.

And the truth is that you should care about the URLs even when doing guest blogging. Optimizing your link structure can improve the performance of your posted article, bringing you more traffic. You can discover other valuable things about guest posts on ranktracker.com. The influence of the slug on SEO performance depends on the frequency of the request and the number of competitors. However, readable slugs always have a positive impact on user experience and satisfaction.

URL Structure and Slug Patterns

Now you understand the meaning of a good website slug, let’s review some examples. The structure of the ideal address may differ depending on the CMS, the features of the site, and the subject of the resource. Here, we will consider only general optimization parameters.

Direct Link

This is a simple representation of an address. It has the structure: site address/page name. In our sample.com site example, this type of link would look like this:

http://example.com/about-company/

Home Page Address + .html Extension

The main URL / page name template with the HTML extension is ideal for creating addresses for static (unchangeable) pages: contacts, reviews, and so on.

http://example.com/contacts.html

Website Address + Path to a Specific Page

This structure is suitable for an address involving a specific section of the site. This type of template is used for blog articles or online store pages. The sequential path is indicated here: main / category/subcategory/page.

http://example.com/blog/section/name-of-the-article/

How to Make the Right Optimized URL

Now, let’s discuss how to write a perfect SEO slug for each page. If you are using a CMS, special plugins will help generate URLs. Without CMS, you need to prepare and register addresses manually.

To correctly compose a suitable URL, let’s analyze the structure of the web address by components. Let’s do this using the following link as an example:

The main components of a URL are:

• The protocol is HTTPS. Shows how data is transferred between host and client. HTTPS is a secure version of the HTTP protocol.
• Slash //. Two or one forward slashes are used as punctuation marks to separate the parts of the link.
• Prefix www. Some experts consider this designation a rudiment, others a prerequisite. But remember that the same link with www and without www for search robots are considered different sites. At the same time, users often, out of habit, type this prefix when manually entering the address. Therefore, using www in the link and redirecting it to a web address without a prefix is advisable.
• The domain name is “example.” It is the site’s name and a link to the main page.
• The top-level domain is com. It is a pointer to belonging to a specific domain zone.
• Section blog. Path to a specific section of the site
• Category beginners. Redirect to subsection.
• The slug is what-is-slug. The name of the page to which the link leads.

The link does not have to contain all of the components listed. The main elements are protocol, domain name, and top-level domain. They are always there. You need to take care of the correct spelling of the domain name, category, and folder names even when creating the site. The usability of the resource in the future largely depends on navigation.

Optimizing the link tail properly is essential when the navigation structure is already marked. The page name is a slug. Here’s what you need to do for this:

• Come up with a page title that is relevant to the content. Focus on the topic or central idea of the material.
• Add keywords or phrases. It is an optional step, but having keywords in the URL will help identify the content of the page and better rank the resource. Avoid spam. Use only 1 or 2 keywords.
• Remove redundant information. A good slug should be short. Remove all words that do not carry a semantic load, and leave critical key phrases. The optimal URL length should not exceed 70–90 characters, including all elements and characters.
• Check the logic of the presentation and convert the characters to lowercase. Use only lowercase letters. Random confusion in the registers can lead to duplicate pages and hurt site performance.
• Remove special characters. If the slug has extra letters, numbers, or signs, delete them. It will make the URL cleaner.
• If your project is multilingual, transliterate the slug to make it understandable for your target audience. Check more info about international multilingual solutions.
• Connect the words. The URL structure doesn’t allow spaces, so you must use underscores or hyphens. Do not write several words without spaces, as this impairs readability.
• Add the result to the link that indicates the path to the page, and you get a clear and correct URL with the ideal length.

Conclusion

A slug is a unique part of a web address on each page. Its optimization is crucial because it affects not only SEO performance but also improves the level and quality of user experience. Don’t neglect this important step in your SEO strategy, and you will see great results very soon.

Share Article

Follow Us

Return to Previous Page