Search Engine Optimization (SEO): how to make my website rank well in the search engines
Use Filenames to Optimize your Site for the Search Engines
Ok, so you’ve carefully chosen your top keywords and phrases, now what do you do with them?
First take a look at your file names. For example, if your site is focused on providing clients with Red Widgets, and your product page’s file name is “products.html.”, that isn’t going to help the search engines understand what you do. But, naming the file, for example, “red-widgets-products.html” tells the search engines exactly what you need them to know - you sell Red Widgets!
Every file name should be relevant to the content/purpose of that specific page. Besides your domain name (which should also contain a keyword if possible), the first thing search engines look at are your file names, why not have the name tell the search engine what your keywords are!
By the way, naming your files with keywords also helps you find the page quickly later on, anytime you need to make changes to the content. For example, if I want to change some pictures of my specialized hand held red widgets and add some new text, I can scan my files until I see “hand-held-red-widgets.html” and there is the exact page I need to edit. By the way, notice how that file name tells the search engines exactly what that page is about, enabling them to index that page for anyone who searches for hand held widgets.
So is there a particular naming convention you should use when giving your page a file name? The only thing you need to keep in mind is that search engines see the hyphens in URLs and Web page file names as spaces. This is important because using hypens aids in readability and organization of your site.
Instead of naming a file “RedWidgets.html” or “red widgets.html” (search engines see that space between “red” and “widget” as a “%20″ - in other words, “red%20widgets.html”) … instead, name the file “red-widgets.html”.
Also, be sure to keep the length of the filename as short as possible. Instead of “red-widgets-with-purple-buttons.html” shorten it to “customizable-red-widgets.html”.
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