How to Write Great Landing Page URLs + Best Practices

As a multi-location business, it’s important to consider your landing page URLs when creating a landing page. Before discussing what a landing page URL is, let’s first define what a landing page is. 

A landing page is a web page that’s connected to an advertising or marketing campaign. It’s where an online user “lands” after clicking on a button or link on a social media ad, search ad, email, or elsewhere online. 

Typically, a landing page’s primary purpose is to have people click on a call to action (CTA). This CTA is connected with a campaign goal, which might include, but is not limited to: 

• Purchasing a service or product
• Giving personal information such as name and email address
• Requesting a demo
• Registering for an event
• Signing up for a webinar

Everything You Need to Know About Landing Page URLs

Now that you know what a landing page is, it’s time to discuss landing page URLs. A well-crafted landing page URL can do two things. It will help your landing page rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP), and it can help convert more landing page visitors. Multiple well-written landing page URLs will improve your digital storefront. 

Crafting SEO-friendly and well-written landing page URLs is an essential component of your online presence management. Here are four of the best practices to keep in mind when creating landing page URLs.

1. Write Readable URLs

Your landing pages must have readable URLs. A readable URL should be brief, entice online users, and makes them feel less worried about clicking a spammy link. In general, commit to the following:

• Remove any number or special characters like “404” or “20%”
• Stray away from words like “and,” “or,” and “the”
• Don’t use uppercase letters

2.  Add Keywords

You don’t want to go overboard with keywords or keyword stuffing. However, as you implement your keyword strategy, plan to put some keywords towards your landing page URLs. When used correctly, onsite SEO and keywords can help your landing page rank higher in search results.

3.  Match URLs with Page Content

It’s best to match your URL with on-page content. You don’t want to mislead your audience or prospects. Therefore, you want to customize your landing page URL with what your multi-location business is promoting. If you’re implementing your keyword strategy, this should happen naturally. For example, include a service or product name in your landing page URL. You can also include your business location’s name for local landing pages.

4. Aim for Shorter URLs

In general, shorter URLs don’t heavily impact SEO. It can affect canonicalization — a signal to Google and other search engines that a master page exists for a set of duplicate pages. 

Here are two examples of URLs going after the same keyword, “Thai food.”

Good landing page URL: http://examplewebsite.com/thai-food-special-september 

Bad landing page URL: http://examplewebsite.com/september-thai-food-special-restaurant-san-diego

So, if a shorter URL doesn’t affect SEO, why does it matter? Again, you want to focus on one keyword phrase in a URL. Therefore, it’s best to keep your landing page URLs short. Also, online searchers are more likely to click on shorter URLs that are easy to read versus longer, more muddled URLs.

Landing Page URL Types

There are a few ways you set up your landing page URLs. No matter how you do it, make sure there’s some consistency across your business locations. Here are the two main landing page URL setups:

One central domain with sub-directories: The sub-directory, in this case, is “insight” with the keyword and/or title afterward.

• https://www.meetsoci.com/insight/soci-awarded-for-innovation-technology/
• https://www.meetsoci.com/insight/top-ranking-and-conversion-factors-for-local-search/

Subdomains under existing domains: The subdomains “lmbr” and “healthcheck” go before the main domain, “www.meetsoci.com” in this case.

• https://lmbr.meetsoci.com/2022-lmbr-report/
• https://lmbr.meetsoci.com/2022-lmbr-report-for-property/ 
• https://healthcheck.www.meetsoci.com/ 

Landing pages and their URL structure are an essential part of your multi-location marketing strategy. If you need help managing your multi-location business’s landing pages, check out SOCi. SOCi Local Pages allows your multi-location business to manage 100s or 1,000s of customized local pages for every business location.

SOCi Ads PLUS can also help you manage social media ads and campaigns and connect CTAs with your local landing pages.