Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divi

Keywords in file names are a good thing. Don't call your webpages names like "services.html" or "products.html" actually use your keywords. Here is an example for you.

Let's say you sell tennis balls online and you have three brands available, Slazenger, Wimbledon and Wilson and your webstore is at www.bigballsintennis.com.

A mistake would be to call your sales page something like this

www.bigballsintennis.com/product1.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/product2.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/product3.html

This just tells search engines that you sell products! What you want to do is use the keywords for the main search terms you want that page to show up for in search engines. Something like this would be better.

www.bigballsintennis.com/slazenger-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wimbledon-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

Note that it would also be a good idea to have a tennis balls homepage that links to all those pages but focuses on the keyword tennis balls only. Something like:

www.bigballsintennis.com/tennis-balls.html

Conduct Keyword Research

Now remember you probably face a bit of competition for the keywords "tennis balls" since globally you might have a few competitors also selling online. You should conduct some keyword research first and determine which phrases you want to work towards optimizing for.

You might notice there is little competition for Slazenger and work towards optimising for sales of that brand. Maybe your research shows that most people are using the phrase "tennis ball shop" so you should optimize for those keywords. Or you might consider working towards a local geographical niche, like "tennis balls Bahamas" or your home town or state.

Remember you don't have to get things right the first time. Do some keyword research, choose some keywords and then test to see how high up you can get your pages to rank for certain key phrases. If those phrases don't bring in traffic keep testing until you find a combination that works. Remember though that file names are only a small part of the overall SEO process and if you only optimize your file names and not the on-page copy, the incoming links, your internal site structure etc. etc, your efforts in file name design will have little impact.

How To Structure Long File Names

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divid

This just tells search engines that you sell products! What you want to do is use the keywords for the main search terms you want that page to show up for in search engines. Something like this would be better.

www.bigballsintennis.com/slazenger-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wimbledon-tennis-balls.html
www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

Note that it would also be a good idea to have a tennis balls homepage that links to all those pages but focuses on the keyword tennis balls only. Something like:

www.bigballsintennis.com/tennis-balls.html

Conduct Keyword Research

Now remember you probably face a bit of competition for the keywords "tennis balls" since globally you might have a few competitors also selling online. You should conduct some keyword research first and determine which phrases you want to work towards optimizing for.

You might notice there is little competition for Slazenger and work towards optimising for sales of that brand. Maybe your research shows that most people are using the phrase "tennis ball shop" so you should optimize for those keywords. Or you might consider working towards a local geographical niche, like "tennis balls Bahamas" or your home town or state.

Remember you don't have to get things right the first time. Do some keyword research, choose some keywords and then test to see how high up you can get your pages to rank for certain key phrases. If those phrases don't bring in traffic keep testing until you find a combination that works. Remember though that file names are only a small part of the overall SEO process and if you only optimize your file names and not the on-page copy, the incoming links, your internal site structure etc. etc, your efforts in file name design will have little impact.

How To Structure Long File Names

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divi

Conduct Keyword Research

Now remember you probably face a bit of competition for the keywords "tennis balls" since globally you might have a few competitors also selling online. You should conduct some keyword research first and determine which phrases you want to work towards optimizing for.

You might notice there is little competition for Slazenger and work towards optimising for sales of that brand. Maybe your research shows that most people are using the phrase "tennis ball shop" so you should optimize for those keywords. Or you might consider working towards a local geographical niche, like "tennis balls Bahamas" or your home town or state.

Remember you don't have to get things right the first time. Do some keyword research, choose some keywords and then test to see how high up you can get your pages to rank for certain key phrases. If those phrases don't bring in traffic keep testing until you find a combination that works. Remember though that file names are only a small part of the overall SEO process and if you only optimize your file names and not the on-page copy, the incoming links, your internal site structure etc. etc, your efforts in file name design will have little impact.

How To Structure Long File Names

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divi

Remember you don't have to get things right the first time. Do some keyword research, choose some keywords and then test to see how high up you can get your pages to rank for certain key phrases. If those phrases don't bring in traffic keep testing until you find a combination that works. Remember though that file names are only a small part of the overall SEO process and if you only optimize your file names and not the on-page copy, the incoming links, your internal site structure etc. etc, your efforts in file name design will have little impact.

How To Structure Long File Names

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divi

Dashes make for better file naming - at least that's what research in Google has demonstrated.

When I say dashes it's like this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson-tennis-balls.html

as opposed to this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/wilson_tennis_balls.html

I have been structuring my files with dashes for a long time now. I made this decision not only for SEO purposes but for human navigation too. Many people don't know what an underscore is and even have trouble finding it on their keyboard. Dashes look clearer on screen and act as a good divider for keywords.

The only thing to be careful with is to not go over board with file names. Don't do this -

www.bigballsintennis.com/the-best-cheapest-most-impressive-wilson-tennis-balls-you-will-find-online.html

Clearly this is just silly. You are diluting your keywords, creating a page that is next to impossible to remember or type in manually and are certainly not helping your search engine optimization.