Page URL keywords

[ReferralCandy]

Hello everybody, I've read that it's important to put your keywords at the front of your page title, meta tag etc, but my question is about the page url. Say my target keywords are exotic, soap, natural, and organic. Will placing the keywords further behind the URL address affect the SEO ranking? If that's the case what's the first n number of words Google considers?

For example,

www.splendidshop.com/gift-set-organic-soap vs

www.splendidshop.com/organic-soap-gift-set

Will the first be any less effective than the second one simply because the keywords are placed behind?

[Solvari]

Yes, I would say the 2nd version gives you slightly better chances on good rankings. The usage of keywords in the title is more important though!

[TomRayner]

Well, there is said to be correlation between having the keyword in the URL and higher rankings, if we are to believe the Searchmetrics ranking reports.

I don't the effect is going to be all that significant, but if you think about page titles and compare it to URLs: If you have a page title like Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Brand - it is said that the keyword at the front would receive the most weight. By the same logic, the earlier your keyword appears in the URL, the more weighting I imagine it would get.  Similarly, if your keyword can appear in the URL as it does in the search term, as in for "organic soap" it would be /organic-soap, I guess it would be "stronger".

In all seriousness though, I can't see either of your options having any significant or influence or tangible effect; either would be fine. I understand that every little helps, but I wouldn't worry about this too much.

[BeardoCo]

Keywords in URLs definitely help your pages rank better for the keywords you are trying to target.  The more precise your URL is to your keyword the better off you are.  As long as your content is consistent and provides value there shouldn't be any issues with google.

[TextMarketing]

ReferralCandy,

When optimizing your page for a set of keywords it's important to keep in mind that exact matches are most powerful. With that in mind, think about your customers and the order of the keywords they type into the search.

Are your customers more likely to google "gift set organic soap"

or

"oganic soap gift set"

In my opinion, the second one is more natural and probably a more common search query.

With that being said, the second URL makes most sense.

Hope this helps!

• Matt