Designing URLs that Drive Traffic
Every online merchant knows the importance of page content in driving traffic and sales, but they very often shoot themselves in the foot by forgetting the importance of URLs in achieving the same goal. URLs are a key component to search engine algorithms, thus every online merchant should critique every URL on their site. If your site is optimized for search, your URLs should:
* Be static rather than dynamic
* Be simple and clean
* Use hyphens rather than underscores
* Include keywords but don’t overdo it (or risk penalty)
* Make sense to a human being (can you tell what might be on this page by looking at the URL alone?)
If you are a Nexternal customer, much of this (and more) is already taken care of for you using our Nexternal.NET platform by design. Since Nexternal’s product page URLs are created by your product names, merchants should name their products wisely. Incorporate keywords because if a URL contains the keyword that is being searched, Google “bolds” the word. Also, make sure a shopper can read each URL and have a good idea of what is on the page without knowing anything about the company, and without following your category structure. Product names are doubly important to optimizing your site with Nexternal because they are also used in H1 tags (another critical SEO element).
Coming from a medical and non-profit management background, Taryn has extensive experience in customer service and marketing. She is a Senior Account Manager for Nexternal and loves working with her clients to develop social media and marketing strategies to improve their online presence. In her spare time, she also runs a successful eCommerce jewelry and essential oils business.
