Should you be using a short URL to rank higher on google? ►►Subscribe here to learn more of my secret SEO tips: https://goo.gl/ScRTwc
Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/neilkpatel/
Read more on my blog: https://neilpatel.com/blog
What’s the benefit of a short URL for SEO, and what websites would you recommend use a short URL for SEO?
If you want to shorten your URL, you could use bitly, but I don’t recommend using too many tools like that. The biggest benefit of a short URL that’s keyword rich, you tend to rank higher in Google.
When you have a long URL with too many subfolders, you’ll notice that your rankings won’t be as high compared to when you have fewer subfolders, and you have shorter URLs that are keyword rich.
The moment you use a short URL for SEO, Google’s like “Hey, this content is about …”
One of my URLs what is SEO, so neilpatel.com/what-is-seo. That page ranks on page one of Google for the term SEO. And it ranks for a lot of other SEO-related terms. It’s short, and because it’s short Google’s like “Oh, this URL’s about SEO and all the other topics around SEO.”
But if my URL were “link building, the key to SEO,” I would only be ranking for certain link building-related topics. Or, if my URL was even worse: “link building, the key to SEO in 2017”, and I know we’re already past 2017, Google will be like “Oh this article’s about 2017, and link building and SEO for 2017.”
So don’t pigeon-hole yourself with really long URLs, the shorter they are, they better. In addition to that, people remember short URL for SEO. For example, I know to log into WordPress it’s my URL dot com slash wp-admin or -login. Right? People remember short URLs.
What about buying domains? Like super short, like one-word, two-word domains. Does that matter?
It does help. One of my competitors is called keywordtool.io, all right? It’s not a dot com, it’s not a dot org, but it’s Keyword Tool dot whatever, io.
I’m also trying to rank for that, Keyword Tool, that term, because I bought a company called Ubersuggest and the URL neilpatel.com/ubersuggest also ranks for Keyword Tool, but not as high. It ranks on, I think, page one or page two or page three, somewhere around there. And eventually, it’ll climb up over time. If I had a URL that was keywordtool.com, when people talk about me, they would link to me.
When you have a shorter URL that is the keyword or a shorter domain name that is the keyword, you get more brand queries. And we’ve talked about this in past videos; brand queries are huge when it comes to rankings.
The reason I also rank decently well for SEO, terms like online marketing, is because a lot of people are googling “Neil Patel.” I built up a brand, I’ve been doing a podcast, doing these videos, more people get to know me and they type in Neil Patel or variations of it, Neil Patel blog, Neil Patel SEO, Neil Patel videos.
Keyword Tool, search that a couple of times.
Yes, Neil Patel keyword tool, there you go! And all that helps with my rankings. The point I’m trying to make, and you brought up an amazing question, is, do domains matter? Yes, domains matter, short domains with keywords are even better, really long domains with keywords aren’t as effective. It used to be much more effective years and years ago, like three, four, five years ago, and people called it exact match domains.
That’s a good hack for you guys: use short URL for SEO. If you want to rank well, for one specific keyword that’s a money keyword, buy a domain with that keyword. It doesn’t have to be a dot com or a dot org, just look at keywordtool.io, it’s a dot io, and they still do well. You can see too.
If you guys have a comment or a question and you want it answered on next week’s Q and A Thursdays, leave a comment below, we both read it, we go through all of them, and we may select it. Either way, you’ll still get a response from me, I answer every single comment, even though it takes me a bit of time. In addition to that, if you enjoyed this video, like it, share it, tell other people about it, do appreciate it, and thank you for watching. And make sure you also subscribe to the channel.
source
