How Shold I Structure URLs for a Portfolio?
-
Hi Moz Community,
My web design agency has a lot of different projects we showcase in the portfolio of our site, but I'm having trouble finding information on the best practices for how to structure the URLs for all of those portfolio pages. We have tons of projects that we've done in the same service category and even multiple projects we've done for the same company within that category.
For example, right now things look like:
www.rootdomain.com/portfolio/web-design/clientname which tends to get long, bulky and awkward, considering we do lots of projects in the web design category and might do a second project for the same company.
How should we differentiate the projects from a URL standpoint to avoid having all of the pages compete for the same keyword? Does it even matter, given that these portfolio showcases are primarily image-based anyways?
-
The structure of a website or a blog is of great importance for its chances to rank in search engines. In my opinion, there are two main reasons for this
- A decent structure makes sure Google ‘understands’ your site.
- A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.
Site structure is only one aspect of SEO. All the different aspects of SEO, like content writing, keyword research and even technical SEO, have to do with site structure. All the different aspects are closely related to one another.
Keyword research
Proper keyword research will help you nd out what search terms are used by your audience. And this is of great importance. Optimizing for words that people don’t use, doesn’t make any sense. In order to perform your keyword research well, you’ll have to get inside the heads of your audience. So, for Example, you have a design agency and you need to research for a topic like Wordpress, Web Design, Woocommerce Design, Shopify and so on.So let's take "Shopify Design" as the main topic, let's assume you have been developed a lot of project about it, and you want to rank your portfolio. In that case, you create a category page called "Shopify Design" and inside of it you can use subcategories like
- Furniture Stores
- Shoes Stores
- Boutique Stores
- Pet Stores
As your site grows, you might create duplicate tags and categories. When you have a category "Shopify Design", you shouldn’t have a tag page
The same goes for single or plural; an article shouldn’t be in the categories ‘shirt’ and ‘shirts’. One of those shouldn’t exist. Pick single or plural and stick with it for all your category and tag terms. Tags and categories are both examples of a taxonomy system. When used correctly, a good taxonomy system can boost your site’s SEO. The opposite is also true: when used wrongly, it’ll break things.
Why optimize your category pages?
There are two main reasons why you should focus on optimizing your category page:1 Category archives are landing pages
Your category archives are more important than individual pages and posts. Those archives should be the rst result in the search engines. That means those archives are your most important landing pages. Thus, they should also provide the best user experience. The more likely your individual pages are to expire, the more this is true. In a shop your products might change, making your categories more important to optimize. Otherwise, you’d be optimizing pages that are going to be gone a few weeks/months later.2 Categories prevent individual pages from competing
If you sell boxers and you optimize every product page, all those pages will compete for the term ‘boxers’. You should optimize them for their specific brand and model, and link them all to the ‘boxers’ category page. That way the category page can rank for ‘boxer’, while the product page can rank for more specific terms. This way, the category page prevents the individual pages from competing.Categories are used to create large groups within your site. They bundle content that has a similar high-level topic. Products or blog posts on your site should fall into a category (a shop category or a blog category).
Tags on the other hand just group content on certain topics together. Tags are not hierarchical. You can see them as an index of your site. They’ll not necessarily fall into a category. They can apply to products, but to other site content as well.
In your case to be effective in your strategy you need to follow a herarqy
- Main Categorie ---> Shopify Design
- Sub Categorie ---> Furniture Stores
- Single Project ---> Project X optimized for a long tail keyword
You can use the tag with a different approach
An example could be- minimal desig
- typographic desig
- color full
I hope this info can help you.If my answer were useful don't forget to mark it as a good answer
Cheers
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Canonical URL on frontpage
I have a site where the CMS system have added a canonical URL on my frontpage, pointing to a subpage on my site. Something like on my domain root.Google is still showing MyDomain.com as the result in the search engines which is good, but can't this approach hurt my ranking? I mean it's basically telling google that my frontpage content is located far down the hierarki, instead of my domain root, which of course have the most authority.
Technical SEO | | EdmondHong87
Something seems to indicate that this could very well be the case, as we lost several placements after moving to this new CMS system a few months ago.0 -
3 URLS Being Created All For The Same Page
I use wordpress for my blog and for some reason it is creating triple urls for my pages. I am not sure it has always been like this or not. I just noticed it in the errors section of SEO Moz. http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/?gid=7&r=20 http://www.kisswedding.com/blog/ashley-and-daniels-rainy-day-diy-farm-wedding/ It's all the exact same page. Is there something I can do in my settings to make this stop. I don't imagine this is good. Ya think....ha! I saw this is the SEO Moz error area for Missing Title Tags. Apparently the number has gone from 200 to 400 which is weird because I never gave my blog posts meta stuff and I haven't written 200 pages since SEO Moz's last crawl.
Technical SEO | | annasusmiles
Maybe I changed something on my blog settings without even knowing. I can't think for the life of me what that would be though. Thanks so much and I appreciate any help received. Edited to add: I added some plugins over the past week. Maybe it's one of these? Category Text Category SEO Meta Tags (just deactivated this one) PhotoSmash (also deactivated this one) Clicky for WordPress0 -
Rel cannonical on all my URL's
Hi, sorry if this question has already been asked, but I can't seem to find the correct answer. In my crawling report for the domain: http://www.wellbo.de I get rel cannonical notices. I have redirected all pages of http://wellbo.de to http://www.wellbo.de with a 301 redirect. Where is my error? Why do I get these notices? I hope the image helps. Ep7Rw.jpg
Technical SEO | | wellbo0 -
Someone is redirecting their url to mine
Hello, I have just discovered that a company in Poland www.realpilot.pl is directing their domain to ours www.transair.co.uk. We have not authorised this, neither do we want this. I have contacted the company and the webmaster to get it removed. If you search for the domain name www.realpilot.pl we (www.transair.co.uk) come up top. My biggest worry is that we will get penalised by Google for this re-direct as it appears to be done using some kind of frame. Does anyone know anything about this kind of thing? Many Thanks Rob Martin
Technical SEO | | brightonseorob0 -
Use of + in url good or bad?
Hi, I am working on a SEO project for a client.
Technical SEO | | MaartenvandenBos
Some of the urls have a + between the keyword.
like www.example.com/make+me+happy/ Is this good or bad for seo?
Or is it maybe better to use - ? Thanks!0 -
Magento URL Question
Calling all Magento Kings out there! I'm working on a client' site - powered by magento. I'm looking to rewrite a lot of the URLs. I know there is the URL rewrite tool, but I think what I need to do may go beyond this. Typical example would be: Old URL - http://www.xxxxxxxx.co.uk/fabric/product/product-black-screen-print-and-silver-fabric.html New URL - http://www.xxxxxx.co.uk/fabric/product/silver I know that magento's URLs seem to be created through categories so wanted to double check with someone the best way to do this. Also, I've heard that 301 redirects of non www to www in the .htaccess has a knock on effect on discounts? All comments greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | PerchDigital0 -
Rel=Canonical to Rewrite or original URL?
Working with a large number of duplicate pages due to different views of products. Rewriting URLs for the most linked page. Should rel=canonical point to the rewritten URL or the actual URL? Is there a way to see what the rewritten URL is within the crawl data? I was taking the approach of rewriting only the base version of each page and then using a rel=canonical on the duplicate pages. Can anyone recommend a better or cleaner approach? Haven't seen too many articles on retail SEO when faced with a less than optimized CMS. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | AmsiveDigital0 -
Duplicate content and URL's
Hi Guys, Hope you are all well. Just a quick question which you will find nice and easy 🙂 I am just about to work through duplicate content pages and URL changes. Firstly, With the duplicate content issue i am finding the seo friendly URL i would normally direct to in some cases has less links, authority and root domain to it than some of the unseo friendly URL's. will this harm me if i still 301 redirect them to the seo friendly URL. Also, With the url changed it is going to be a huge job to change all the url so they are friendly and the CMS system is poor. Is there a better way of doing this? It has been suggested that we create a new webpage with a friendly URL and redirect all the pages to that. Will this lose all the weight as it will be a brand new page? Thank you for your help guys your legends!! Cheers Wayne
Technical SEO | | wazza19850