Include placename in URL, or not?

[McTaggart]

Hi Mozzers,

I'm wondering whether to put placename in URL or not. This is for a hotel so it's very focused on the county.

I have loads of sub pages along the lines of www.hotelname.com/short-breaks-somerset  www.hotelname.com/eat-out-somerset and so on but I was wondering whether that placename element would help or hinder.

For example, may want to rank for short breaks in other searches (not just those seeking short breaks in Somerset) and was wondering whether the somerset bit may actually hinder this in the future.

Also noticed Somerset is mentioned in nearly all of the page urls through the site. Perhaps this is a bit spammy and just not neccesary. I can include the address of the hotel on every page anyway.

What do you think? Thanks in advance for your help Luke

[TomRayner]

Hey Luke

I say promote Somerset more and more, it's lovely there!

I think from an SEO perspective having Somerset in your place name is unlikely to have a negative effect.  It's not really stuffing a keyword in there, it's more being descriptive, so I wouldn't worry there.

Now for other non-Somerset terms, it could be having a slight SEO effect.  There's a slight correlation between URLs with keywords in them and higher rankings, so one could argue that if Google is able to associate your hotel/breaks with Somerset, it might disassociate them with hotel breaks in say Blackpool.  The URL may not serve the user intent (although I'd say your on-page content would dictate this far more).

What I do think would be a greater problem, however, is the click-through and conversion rate of users looking for breaks but not in the somerset area.  If they see your site in the search engines and see Somerset in the URL, it might discourage them for clicking.  Similarly, if they're on your site and see it, they might not think it's relevant and leave.

More so for the user experience rather than the SEO ramifications, I'd consider changing the URL, if this is relevant.

[McTaggart]

Thanks Tom - thanks for nudging me in the right direction and Somerset is just brilliant. Haven't actually been there before but... wow. Drinking a nice glass of organic Somerset Cider as I type (slurp!).