Help writing a particular URL slug
-
Hello, I work for an Theater news site.
We've drafted an interview piece where three actors (Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom, Jr, and Karen Olivo) discuss their participation in an upcoming show (tick, tick... BOOM), which is an autobiographical precursor to Jonathan Larson's hit Broadway musical, Rent. The show is playing for five days in the New York City Center's 'Encores' musical theater series event.
In the interview, the actors widely discuss Mr. Larson's impact on the theater community, who passed away suddenly in 2001. As you might imagine, the most popular keywords on Google trends are of Mr. Larson, the show name, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, a tony-winning composer.
We're considering slugs that represent several permutations of the above actor + show combinations (below), but we're struggling trying to balance a slug that appropriately explains the article, uses appropriate keywords, and limit them (to a count of 5, per google's recommendation).
Any suggestions?
miranda-olivo-odom-inside-tick-tick-boomlin-manuel-olivo-odom-inside-tick-tick-boomtick-tick-boom-encores-interviewjonathan-larson-tick-tick-boom-at-encores
-
David, thanks for your insight (you too Rand!).
Any chance I could email / call you directly to discuss the idea? There are some implementation issues we'd need to address on our site to be able to incorporate a system like this.
-
If it isn't too much work for your staff, I would consider branching off into individual actors interviews, instead of grouping them into one long page. This will allow for better optimization on each page, and better usability for traffic, since they dont have to scroll through a huge page with many interviews. At the bottom of each, have a link that allows users to access the next interview easily. This way, you are focusing on a wider scope of keywords, have multiple opportunities for rankings, and can set up a top-level menu item based around the event with links to the internal pages.
Something like:
DOMAIN.com/inside-tick-tick-boom -- landing page
DOMAIN.com/inside-tick-tick-boom/interviews
DOMAIN.com/inside-tick-tick-boom/interviews/actors_names
By using this method you also will have multiple opportunities for social sharing, since you have an increased number of pages each with their own share links.
Hope this helps!
-
OK first off, let me just say that wow, that sounds like an awesome job and a thrilling industry to work in! Getting to interview Broadway musical actors is just super cool Congrats!
Now on to the SEO... The URL itself likely isn't too much of a concern. It's a very minor element in the overall scheme of things. That said, I'd be thinking about how it might potentially be used as link anchor text (if folks, for example, cut and paste the URL without ascribing specific new anchor text - in which case the URL itself becomes the anchor). My suggestion would thus be to think about the 3-4 phrases you want searchers to type in to reach this specific page. The page is very unlikely to rank for specific actor, writer, or composer names, but it might well rank for something related to combinations of the show name and actor names.
For example, if someone searched for "leslie odom tick tick boom" in Google, you might have a good shot at ranking. If they searched for "tick tick boom" or for "leslie odom" or for "jonathan larson" the page almost certainly wouldn't rank. Thus, I'd urge you to find the combination of name(s) + show title that is likely to drive the most traffic. That may actually be something broader like /tick-tick-boom-actors-interviewed. In that scenario, anyone searching for tick tick boom interviews or tick tick boom actors broadly could see the slug and suspect it's the right one (and Google could, too). Using only a single actor's name might be limiting.
Hope that helps! For more on URL structuring, check out http://moz.com/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls (it's old but still very relevant).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Optimized URL?
Hi Mozers, We're trying to come up with an SEO friendly URL. Does it make sense to re-order primary-secondary-tumor to secondary-primary-tumor because "primary tumor" has high volumes and thus those two words should be adjacent? Any advice is appreciated! Yael
Keyword Research | | yaelslater0 -
Keyword Research Help
Hi all, My website is www.bruadair.com which is a luxury 7 bedroom villa in Barbados primary suited for large groups and weddings , using googles adword keyword tool i have been trying to establish some long tail keywords that i could include in my website. However i am finding it extremely difficult to find any long tail keywords (such as: Luxury 7 bedroom Villa Barbados ) that are receiving any local or global searches, it seems that there are only extremely competitive keywords receiving traffic. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how i can find effective keywords? With this type of website is it really as likely to be able to rank high due to the pure amount of keyword competition? I would really appreciate any help given as i am really struggling with my keyword research 😞 Thank you very much!!
Keyword Research | | Tmgale0 -
Does combining keywords in the page title help or hurt you?
I am working on a site which sells elliptical equipment. I used Google Adwords to determine number of searches on the following keywords: Elliptical trainer – 3.,600 searches Elliptical machine – 14,800 searches Elliptical trainer machine - 22 searches I am currently optimizing “elliptical trainer” – but after seeing results above would also like to optimize “elliptical machine”. My question is: if I add “machine” to “elliptical trainer” will Google now only read “elliptical trainer machine” or will it read “elliptical machine” in addition to “elliptical trainer”. How do you know what word or “chunk” of words Google picks up?
Keyword Research | | ChristieC1 -
Help needed on the keyword research tool
I am running the keyword research tool and the Google AdWords Broad Match Google AdWords Exact Match are coming up unavailable,i live in South Africa and i use this software for clients here, every time I run this it doesn't show, why...............? its not my internet, I have a 10mb line, even when I refresh the page it doesnt pick the volumes up Capturehelp.JPG
Keyword Research | | nick_pageone0 -
Is there a way to search 400+ urls for a specific keyword?
I have a large list of URL's that need to be checked for a specific keyword. I've been doing them one at a time and it's painful. Is there a web based tool out there that can search many different URL's at once?
Keyword Research | | billnet0 -
What is the maximum lenght in url for keyword ?
Howdy, I was looking at the maximum lenght of url for ntfs and they told me it was 255 character for url and/or folder ect. Does that mean that i could use the full lenght of 255 filled whit keyword for the url on my site ? Thx.
Keyword Research | | Promoteam0 -
Is the all in title technique helpful?
I watched a tutorial on lynda.com about keyword research. And they said to use the All In Tittle trick to see how many pages on google are optimized for that keyword - do you reccommend using that method as well? In google, you type allintitle:"key word phrase" and the results show how many page titles are optimized for that phrase. Should I use this technique as well when choosing keywords?
Keyword Research | | aircyclemegan1 -
Help selecting KWs based on their difficult to rank for and KW tool question
I've done all of my keyword research, and now I'm selecting the KW's. In a previous question, seomoz had answered to pick a mix of easy, medium, and difficult words to rank for. How do I know which are easy, medium, difficult? The KW Difficulty Tool is not very specific. Is the level of difficulty related to where the phrase pops up for my company in search results? Are hard words ones that you do not already rank in the top 50 search results? When selecting KWs should I choose words that rank already in the top 50 that I'd like to try to move up? Or look for NEW phrases/words not in the top 50 results? Also, when entering KW phrases int the KW Difficulty Tool, Rank Tracker, and in Campaigns - do I need to use quotation marks if it is a phrase? I noticed that the KW difficulty tool has different results if you use quotation marks. Lastly, The person who did SEO before me has a list of KWs he optimized for, would it be valuable for me to include his words in my On-Page optimization efforts?
Keyword Research | | aircyclemegan0