Changing existing URL to boost SEO

[Samsam0000]

What's best practice regarding changing URLs for SEO?

If the page contains great information around a particular term but the URL is not reflective of this and thus the page isn't ranking should the URL be changed? Or is it always a hard and fast no?

It would seem to make sense to me if the page didn't have any backlinks already and Organic clicks were minimal.

Sam

[ClaytonJ]

Not 100% clear on your question.  However, it sounds like the url does not reflect the article content. If this is the case, then on  macro view a url hierarchy for the website should be constructed to suit the customer and website.

Back to an individual page - yes - we would recommend to our clients to change the url to suit the context and content of the page. So if current url is www.example.com/123456 and the page is about car insurance the url we would recommend be www.example.com/car-insurance/

Hope that is helpful.

[alexspur]

As Don_quixote mentioned, yes it would be helpful to change to URL's so they correspond to your content. That will make them "SEO Friendly". However, remember to redirect them with a 301 every time you are changing them. That will spare you a lot of problems later and you'll keep your page rank (if they have any).