The 5 Biggest Benefits of Readable URLs

A human readable URL looks something like this:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/toys/green-fluffy-dogs

A non-readable URL looks more like this:

http://www.yourwebsite.com/cat39/prodid1347

Here are the 5 most important reasons you should always try to use Readable URLs:

1. Visitors know exactly what your pages are about, just by looking at the address
2. If your website turns up in search results for the phrase ‘green fluffy dog toys’, those parts of the URL will be bolded (eg http://www.yourwebsite.com/toys/green-fully-dogs). That may seem a minor advantage, but if you’re the only page in the results that does that, you’ve gained an extra chance to stand out at no extra cost.
3. If other sites link to your pages & use your URL as the link text (which is quite common), they’ll automatically include keywords relevant to your page (which improves your search rankings for those terms)
4. Readable URLs are far more memorable & much easier to convey over the phone.
5. They look both approachable & professional. There may be situations where it’s better to not look approachable & professional, but they’re somewhat rare.

If you’re still having trouble justifying readable URLs (to yourself, to your boss, or to your clients), here’s a great little argument: You put a lot of time & money into thinking up a great website address & printing it on your marketing material. Why would you leave the address of every other page on your site up to chance?