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SEO - Relevant Filenames

SEO, Course, SEO Certification, SEO Training, SEO Tutorial. 

Structuring Files

Proper file naming is important when trying to improve your search engine optimization. Search engines like Google prioritize file-names. You should think about what you won't put on your web page and then give a relevant file name to this page.

Certain keywords, when searched on Google produces results with file names highlighted. This means when naming files use the appropriate keywords.

File Naming Style

1. The filename should be short and descriptive.

2. Use the same keywords in a filename as well as in a page title.

3. Do not use generic names such as service.htm or job.htm. Use the actual service name in your file name, this could be computer-repairing.htm.

4. File names shouldn’t exceed 3-4 words.

5. Do not use underscores to separate keywords, rather use hyphens.

6. If possible, use just 2 keywords.

File Name Example

Below are a few listed filenames, they are ideal from the users' point of view as well as SEO.

postman-brand-icon.html

linkedin-profile-image.html

cadbury-brand-image.html

Using the above examples, notice that the keywords are separated by hyphens rather than underscores? Below is the format in which Google sees good filenames, they are:

1. seo-relevant-filename as seo relevant filename(good)

2. Filenames containing underscores is not ideal.

3. Seo_relevant_filename is seen as seorelevantfilename (not good)

File Extension

Using extensions like .html, .htm, .php and others extension does nothing for visitors to your site, most of the time it is simply a means of offloading some of the work of configuring your webserver properly onto your visitors, using this pattern means you’re asking your site visitors how to request for files from your webserver, not which file to request from the webserver.

Using file names without the extension by webmasters doesn’t do much, though most think it’s a good idea.

URL Sub-Directory Name

From an SEO point of view, the URL sub-directory name is quite insignificant, this can be confirmed by giving any keyword in any search, and you won’t find any sub-directory name matching with your keywords. An abbreviated sub-directory name should be kept from the user’s point of view.

The following points should be kept in mind when naming files:

1. Keep the filename of the web page short, simple, descriptive, and relevant to the page content.

2. Try not to exceed a maximum of 3-4 keywords when naming files, these keywords should also appear on your web page title.

3. Use a hyphen to separate keywords rather than using underscore.

4. Maintain a short name for your sub-directories.

5. File size should be restricted to less than 101K since Google cuts out almost everything above that.

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