SEO
The Ultimate Guide for an SEO-Friendly URL Structure
To many, URLs are just seemingly inconsequential addresses to webpages. However, how you structure URLs for SEO matters.
They may seem less important than the title and heading elements but URLs can be a powerful tool for achieving SEO success.
Are Keywords in URLs Used for Ranking?
There’s no clear answer to whether keywords in the URL are used for ranking. Here’s why.
2010: Approach Keywords in URL Like a User
In 2010, Google’s Matt Cutts published a video where he discussed keywords in the path name versus keywords in the filename.
The path name is:
/tools/wood/drills.html
The multi-hyphen filename is:
/tools-wood-drills.html
Cutts recommended approaching the problem from the point of what a user might prefer.
He stated that the multi-hyphenated version may appear spammy to users.
He then affirmed that there is no multi-hyphen algorithm that will penalize multiple hyphens, doubling down on the approach of looking at it from a user perspective.
Cutts implied that there was a user impact effect in the following statement:
“As far as search engine ranking, I’m not sure that there’s really that much difference between the two.
But you might want to be a little careful because of the user experience of having a really long filename that’s just stuffed with hyphens. People might not like it if they see dash, dash, dash, dash, dash, dash and so they might not click on it.”
Matt didn’t address the ranking factor aspect.
It could be that what he wanted to stress was that the user experience part – what people would click on in the search engine results pages (SERPs) – was more important than any ranking factor-related benefit.
2011: Keywords in Domain are Ranking Factors
In 2011, in a somewhat related video about keywords in domains, he stated that Google was thinking about turning down the influence of keywords in the domain.
Like keywords in URLs, keywords in domains were also ranking factors.
But they were downplayed in terms of how important they were.
Matt downplays their ranking factor role in favor of other factors related to user experience and marketing – which is similar to how he also downplayed keywords in the URL.
2016: Google Says Keywords are Very Small Ranking Factor
In a Webmaster Central hangout in January 2016, John Mueller did in fact acknowledge that keywords in the URL were a ranking factor.
However, he minimized the importance of that as a ranking factor, describing its influence as being “very small.”
Mueller:
“I believe that’s a very small ranking factor, so it’s not something I’d really try to force. And it’s not something where I’d say it’s even worth your effort to kind of restructure your site just so you can include keywords in the URL.”
Calling it “very small” lines up well with what Cutts had been saying all along – that there are other areas of a site that are more important to focus on.
2017: Keywords in URL are Overrated
Mueller continued to minimize the importance of keywords in the URL as a ranking factor.
In 2017, he called them overrated.
Keywords in URLs are overrated for Google SEO. Make URLs for users. Also, on mobile you usually don’t even see them.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) March 8, 2017
2018: Don’t Worry About Keywords in URL
As recently as 2018, Mueller continued to downplay keywords in URL as a ranking factor, saying that they’re not even seen by users.
(Presumably, he’s referencing URLs invisibility in the Google SERPs.)
I wouldn’t worry about keywords or words in a URL. In many cases, URLs aren’t seen by users anyway.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 6, 2018
Keywords in a URL may be a ranking factor but judging from Googler statements, it’s a very minor one.
Are Keywords in Bare URL Links Used as Anchor Text?
There’s an idea around that if someone links to your site with just the link, Google will at least use the keywords in the URL as anchor text, which will help that site rank better for that anchor text.
That kind of link is sometimes called a naked link.
It’s called naked because it is a link in the form of a URL instead of hidden in an anchor text.
Bare URL:
http://www.example.com/
URL in an anchor text:
Click here!
Mueller said (How Google Handles Naked Links, September 2020) that naked links do not pass anchor text information.
This is what he said:
“From what I understand, our systems do try to recognize this and say well, this is just a URL that is linked, it’s not that there’s a valuable anchor here.
So we can take this into account as a link but we can’t really use that anchor text for anything in particular.
So from that point of view it’s a normal link but we don’t have any context there.”
Can Keywords in a URL Increase Clicks From SERPS?
There’s an old SEO idea that says using keywords in the URL will help stimulate a higher click-through rate (CTR) from the search results pages (SERPs).
This might have been true in the past.
It’s less true today, particularly for sites that use breadcrumb navigation and/or breadcrumb navigation structured data.
Google is instead using the category name in the search results for sites that feature breadcrumb navigation or breadcrumb navigation structured data.
The keywords in the URL are not visible.
For sites that don’t use breadcrumb navigation or the breadcrumb structured data, Google does display the URLs with keywords in them.
But Google does not highlight them.
If Google did highlight the keywords in the URL, it might have helped to draw the eye to the listing—but this is not the case.
What Use Are Keywords in a URL?
Aside from a very minor possible ranking factor weight, there are clear benefits to site visitors for keywords in a URL.
Keywords in the URL can help users understand what a page is about.
Even though those keywords might not always show up in the SERPs, they will show when linked as a bare URL.
Example of a bare URL:
https:www.example.com/widgets/best-widgets
When in doubt, optimize for the user because Google always recommends making pages useful for users.
This tends to align with the kinds of webpages Google wants to rank.
Best Practices for URL Structure
Standardize Your URLs in Lowercase
Most servers don’t have problems with mixed case URLs.
Even so, it’s a good idea to standardize what your URLs look like.
URLs are commonly written in the lowercase “like-this-dot-com” as opposed to mixed case “Like-That-Dot-Net” or in all uppercase “LIKE-THIS-DOT-BIZ.”
It’s best to do that as well if only because that’s what users expect and it is easier to read than all caps.
Keeping your URLs standardized will help prevent linking errors within the site and from outside of the site, too.
Use Hyphens, Not Underscores
Always use hyphens (-) and not underscores (_) because underscores cannot be seen when the URL is published as a bare link.
Here’s an example of how underscores in links are a bad practice:
Use Accurate Keywords in Category URL Structure
Using a less relevant keyword as the category name is a common mistake that comes from choosing the keyword with the most traffic.
Sometimes the highest traffic keyword isn’t necessarily what the pages in the category are about.
Select category names that truly describe what the pages contained within it are about.
When in doubt, pick the words that are most relevant to users who are looking for the content or products that are contained within those categories.
Avoid Using Superfluous Words in URL Structure
Sometimes a CMS might add the word /category/ into the URL structure.
This is an undesirable URL structure.
There is no justification for a URL structure that looks like /category/widget/.
It should simply be /widget/.
Similarly, if a better word than “blog” exists for telling users what to expect out of a section of your site, then use that instead.
Words guide users to content they are looking for.
Use them appropriately.
Future Proof Your URLs
Just because a date is in the title of the article doesn’t mean it belongs in the URL.
If you intend to create a “Top xxx for 20xx” type of post, it is generally a better practice to use the same URL year after year.
So instead of:
example.com/widgets/top-widgets-2020
Try removing the year and simply go with:
example.com/widgets/top-widgets
The benefit of updating the content and the title year after year and keeping the same URL is that all of the links that went to the previous year of content remain.
Anyone who follows the old links will find the updated content.
It’s possible to create an archive of previous years, as well.
That’s up to you.
Trailing Slash or No Trailing Slash
A trailing slash is this symbol: [ / ].
The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) – the group responsible for web standards – recommends best practice is that the trailing slash should be used to indicate a “container URI” for denoting parent/child relationships.
(A URI is used to identify resources in the same way as a URL, except those resources may not be on the web.)
A parent/child relationship is when a category contains numerous webpages.
The category “container” is the parent and the webpages contained within it are the children documents that are contained within the category.
This is what the W3C states in the section called, Linked Data Platform Best Practices and Guidelines:
“2.6 Include a trailing slash in container URIs
When representing container membership with hierarchical URLs, including the trailing slash in a container’s URI makes it easier to use relative URIs.”
In HTML, the trailing slash is supposed to indicate the presence of a directory or a category section.
In 2017 Google’s John Mueller tweeted that apart from the home page, a URL with and a URL without a trailing slash are different web pages.
For example:
https://www.example.com/widgets
can be a different page from:
https://www.example.com/widgets/
/widgets denotes a page while /widgets/ represents a directory or category section.
I noticed there was some confusion around trailing slashes on URLs, so I hope this helps. tl;dr: slash on root/hostname=doesn’t matter; slash elsewhere=does matter (they’re different URLs) pic.twitter.com/qjKebMa8V8
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) December 19, 2017
Mueller’s tweet in 2017 reaffirmed an official Google blog post from 2010 (To Slash or Not to Slash) that made similar statements.
However, even in that 2010 blog post, Google pretty much left it up to publishers to decide how to use trailing slashes.
But Google’s adherence to a common trailing slash convention reflects that point of view.
Google Is Flexible on Trailing Slash Best Practices
Here’s an example of how Google codes URLs.
This URL features the .html at the end and is clearly a web page:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/11/timing-for-page-experience.html
This URL ending with a trailing slash is a category page:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/11/
And this is the container for the month year of 2020:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2020/
The above examples conform with the standard recommendation to use trailing slashes at the end for a category directory and to not use it at the end of the URL when it’s a web page.
Google URLs Lacking Trailing Slash Altogether
However, other sections published by Google don’t conform to that standard.
The following examples are categories and webpages that do not use a trailing slash.
- This is a URL for a category section:
https://developers.google.com/analytics - This is a web page:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/integrate - And this is another web page:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/firebase/android
All of those webpages and category pages look similar because they don’t use a trailing slash.
Google Is Flexible in Use of Trailing Slash
The above examples show that yes, there are best practices.
But this is one of those best practices that can be ignored.
As far back as 2010, Google’s advice on the use of trailing slashes was flexible.
“…you’re free to choose whichever you like.”
Perhaps the most important point about trailing slash in the URL is that you choose one way of doing it and sticking with that so you can avoid confusion.
It also makes it easier to redirect non-trailing slash URLs to the trailing slash, etc.
URLs for SEO Purposes
The topic of SEO-friendly URLs is deeper than one may suspect, with many nuances to it.
While Google is increasingly not showing URLs in the SERPs, popular search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo still show them.
URLs are a good way to signal to a potential site visitor what a page is about.
The proper use of URLs can help improve click-through rates wherever the links are shared.
And keeping URLs shorter makes them user friendly and easier to share.
Webpages that make it easy to share are helping users make the pages popular.
Don’t underestimate the power of popularity for ranking purposes because some of what search engines do is to show users what the users are expecting to see.
The URL is a humble and somewhat overlooked part of the SEO equation but it can contribute a great deal to helping your pages rank well.
More Resources:
Image Credits
Featured image and screenshots by author, November 2020
SEO
How To Write ChatGPT Prompts To Get The Best Results
ChatGPT is a game changer in the field of SEO. This powerful language model can generate human-like content, making it an invaluable tool for SEO professionals.
However, the prompts you provide largely determine the quality of the output.
To unlock the full potential of ChatGPT and create content that resonates with your audience and search engines, writing effective prompts is crucial.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the art of writing prompts for ChatGPT, covering everything from basic techniques to advanced strategies for layering prompts and generating high-quality, SEO-friendly content.
Writing Prompts For ChatGPT
What Is A ChatGPT Prompt?
A ChatGPT prompt is an instruction or discussion topic a user provides for the ChatGPT AI model to respond to.
The prompt can be a question, statement, or any other stimulus to spark creativity, reflection, or engagement.
Users can use the prompt to generate ideas, share their thoughts, or start a conversation.
ChatGPT prompts are designed to be open-ended and can be customized based on the user’s preferences and interests.
How To Write Prompts For ChatGPT
Start by giving ChatGPT a writing prompt, such as, “Write a short story about a person who discovers they have a superpower.”
ChatGPT will then generate a response based on your prompt. Depending on the prompt’s complexity and the level of detail you requested, the answer may be a few sentences or several paragraphs long.
Use the ChatGPT-generated response as a starting point for your writing. You can take the ideas and concepts presented in the answer and expand upon them, adding your own unique spin to the story.
If you want to generate additional ideas, try asking ChatGPT follow-up questions related to your original prompt.
For example, you could ask, “What challenges might the person face in exploring their newfound superpower?” Or, “How might the person’s relationships with others be affected by their superpower?”
Remember that ChatGPT’s answers are generated by artificial intelligence and may not always be perfect or exactly what you want.
However, they can still be a great source of inspiration and help you start writing.
Must-Have GPTs Assistant
I recommend installing the WebBrowser Assistant created by the OpenAI Team. This tool allows you to add relevant Bing results to your ChatGPT prompts.
This assistant adds the first web results to your ChatGPT prompts for more accurate and up-to-date conversations.
It is very easy to install in only two clicks. (Click on Start Chat.)
For example, if I ask, “Who is Vincent Terrasi?,” ChatGPT has no answer.
With WebBrower Assistant, the assistant creates a new prompt with the first Bing results, and now ChatGPT knows who Vincent Terrasi is.
You can test other GPT assistants available in the GPTs search engine if you want to use Google results.
Master Reverse Prompt Engineering
ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for reverse engineering prompts because it generates natural and engaging responses to any given input.
By analyzing the prompts generated by ChatGPT, it is possible to gain insight into the model’s underlying thought processes and decision-making strategies.
One key benefit of using ChatGPT to reverse engineer prompts is that the model is highly transparent in its decision-making.
This means that the reasoning and logic behind each response can be traced, making it easier to understand how the model arrives at its conclusions.
Once you’ve done this a few times for different types of content, you’ll gain insight into crafting more effective prompts.
Prepare Your ChatGPT For Generating Prompts
First, activate the reverse prompt engineering.
- Type the following prompt: “Enable Reverse Prompt Engineering? By Reverse Prompt Engineering I mean creating a prompt from a given text.”
ChatGPT is now ready to generate your prompt. You can test the product description in a new chatbot session and evaluate the generated prompt.
- Type: “Create a very technical reverse prompt engineering template for a product description about iPhone 11.”
The result is amazing. You can test with a full text that you want to reproduce. Here is an example of a prompt for selling a Kindle on Amazon.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {product), capture the writing style and the length of the text :
product =”
I tested it on an SEJ blog post. Enjoy the analysis – it is excellent.
- Type: “Reverse Prompt engineer the following {text}, capture the tone and writing style of the {text} to include in the prompt :
text = all text coming from https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-bard-training-data/478941/”
But be careful not to use ChatGPT to generate your texts. It is just a personal assistant.
Go Deeper
Prompts and examples for SEO:
- Keyword research and content ideas prompt: “Provide a list of 20 long-tail keyword ideas related to ‘local SEO strategies’ along with brief content topic descriptions for each keyword.”
- Optimizing content for featured snippets prompt: “Write a 40-50 word paragraph optimized for the query ‘what is the featured snippet in Google search’ that could potentially earn the featured snippet.”
- Creating meta descriptions prompt: “Draft a compelling meta description for the following blog post title: ’10 Technical SEO Factors You Can’t Ignore in 2024′.”
Important Considerations:
- Always Fact-Check: While ChatGPT can be a helpful tool, it’s crucial to remember that it may generate inaccurate or fabricated information. Always verify any facts, statistics, or quotes generated by ChatGPT before incorporating them into your content.
- Maintain Control and Creativity: Use ChatGPT as a tool to assist your writing, not replace it. Don’t rely on it to do your thinking or create content from scratch. Your unique perspective and creativity are essential for producing high-quality, engaging content.
- Iteration is Key: Refine and revise the outputs generated by ChatGPT to ensure they align with your voice, style, and intended message.
Additional Prompts for Rewording and SEO:
– Rewrite this sentence to be more concise and impactful.
– Suggest alternative phrasing for this section to improve clarity.
– Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant internal and external links.
– Analyze the keyword density and suggest improvements for better SEO.
Remember, while ChatGPT can be a valuable tool, it’s essential to use it responsibly and maintain control over your content creation process.
Experiment And Refine Your Prompting Techniques
Writing effective prompts for ChatGPT is an essential skill for any SEO professional who wants to harness the power of AI-generated content.
Hopefully, the insights and examples shared in this article can inspire you and help guide you to crafting stronger prompts that yield high-quality content.
Remember to experiment with layering prompts, iterating on the output, and continually refining your prompting techniques.
This will help you stay ahead of the curve in the ever-changing world of SEO.
More resources:
Featured Image: Tapati Rinchumrus/Shutterstock
SEO
Measuring Content Impact Across The Customer Journey
Understanding the impact of your content at every touchpoint of the customer journey is essential – but that’s easier said than done. From attracting potential leads to nurturing them into loyal customers, there are many touchpoints to look into.
So how do you identify and take advantage of these opportunities for growth?
Watch this on-demand webinar and learn a comprehensive approach for measuring the value of your content initiatives, so you can optimize resource allocation for maximum impact.
You’ll learn:
- Fresh methods for measuring your content’s impact.
- Fascinating insights using first-touch attribution, and how it differs from the usual last-touch perspective.
- Ways to persuade decision-makers to invest in more content by showcasing its value convincingly.
With Bill Franklin and Oliver Tani of DAC Group, we unravel the nuances of attribution modeling, emphasizing the significance of layering first-touch and last-touch attribution within your measurement strategy.
Check out these insights to help you craft compelling content tailored to each stage, using an approach rooted in first-hand experience to ensure your content resonates.
Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or new to content measurement, this webinar promises valuable insights and actionable tactics to elevate your SEO game and optimize your content initiatives for success.
View the slides below or check out the full webinar for all the details.
SEO
How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords
Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals rank for in Google’s search results. They may rank organically or pay for Google Ads to rank in the paid results.
Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest form of keyword research. If your competitors rank for or target particular keywords, it might be worth it for you to target them, too.
There is no way to see your competitors’ keywords without a tool like Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that rank for them. As far as we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.
How to find all the keywords your competitor ranks for
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Organic keywords report
The report is sorted by traffic to show you the keywords sending your competitor the most visits. For example, Mailchimp gets most of its organic traffic from the keyword “mailchimp.”
Since you’re unlikely to rank for your competitor’s brand, you might want to exclude branded keywords from the report. You can do this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter out keywords containing “mailchimp” or any potential misspellings:
If you’re a new brand competing with one that’s established, you might also want to look for popular low-difficulty keywords. You can do this by setting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.
How to find keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter your competitor’s domain in the But these competitors do section
Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll see all the keywords your competitor ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also add a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords in this report.
How to find keywords multiple competitors rank for, but you don’t
- Go to Competitive Analysis
- Enter your domain in the This target doesn’t rank for section
- Enter the domains of multiple competitors in the But these competitors do section
You’ll see all the keywords that at least one of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.
You can also narrow the list down to keywords that all competitors rank for. Click on the Competitors’ positions filter and choose All 3 competitors:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
- Enter your competitor’s domain
- Go to the Paid keywords report
This report shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.
Since your competitor is paying for traffic from these keywords, it may indicate that they’re profitable for them—and could be for you, too.
You know what keywords your competitors are ranking for or bidding on. But what do you do with them? There are basically three options.
1. Create pages to target these keywords
You can only rank for keywords if you have content about them. So, the most straightforward thing you can do for competitors’ keywords you want to rank for is to create pages to target them.
However, before you do this, it’s worth clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This will group keywords that mean the same or similar things so you can target them all with one page.
Here’s how to do that:
- Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords or Content Gap report
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords like “what is digital marketing” and “digital marketing definition.” These and many others get clustered under the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” because people searching for them are all looking for the same thing: a definition of digital marketing. You only need to create one page to potentially rank for all these keywords.
2. Optimize existing content by filling subtopics
You don’t always need to create new content to rank for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you can optimize the content you already have to rank for them.
How do you know which keywords you can do this for? Try this:
- Export your competitor’s keywords
- Paste them into Keywords Explorer
- Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
- Look for Parent Topics you already have content about
For example, if we analyze our competitor, we can see that seven keywords they rank for fall under the Parent Topic of “press release template.”
If we search our site, we see that we already have a page about this topic.
If we click the caret and check the keywords in the cluster, we see keywords like “press release example” and “press release format.”
To rank for the keywords in the cluster, we can probably optimize the page we already have by adding sections about the subtopics of “press release examples” and “press release format.”
3. Target these keywords with Google Ads
Paid keywords are the simplest—look through the report and see if there are any relevant keywords you might want to target, too.
For example, Mailchimp is bidding for the keyword “how to create a newsletter.”
If you’re ConvertKit, you may also want to target this keyword since it’s relevant.
If you decide to target the same keyword via Google Ads, you can hover over the magnifying glass to see the ads your competitor is using.
You can also see the landing page your competitor directs ad traffic to under the URL column.
Learn more
Check out more tutorials on how to do competitor keyword analysis:
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