Effective search engine optimization (SEO) requires more than just great content. Your site’s structure, including the URLs, plays a crucial role in improving visibility and driving traffic. With PrestaShop, creating clean and SEO-friendly URLs is essential for making your site more appealing to search engines and users alike.
In this blog, we’ll cover 8 essential PrestaShop friendly URL hacks to help you simplify your SEO process, improve site performance, and rank higher on search engines.
1. Enable PrestaShop Friendly URLs
One of the simplest but most effective steps you can take is to enable PrestaShop friendly URLs. By default, PrestaShop generates URLs that contain unnecessary characters and numbers, which can confuse both users and search engines. Switching to friendly URLs creates cleaner, more understandable links that are easier to rank.
How to enable friendly URLs:
In the PrestaShop back office, go to “Shop Parameters” > “Traffic & SEO.”
Enable the “Friendly URL” option and save the settings.
Once you enable friendly URLs, PrestaShop will automatically clean up your URL structure, making your pages more SEO-friendly.
2. Remove URL IDs for a Cleaner Structure
Even after enabling friendly URLs, you might still see numeric IDs in your URLs (e.g., product or category IDs). These IDs add unnecessary complexity to your URLs and are not helpful for SEO. Removing these IDs is an easy way to simplify your URL structure, improving the user experience and search engine indexing.
How to remove URL IDs:
Use a PrestaShop module like “Remove IDs” to eliminate the numbers from your URLs.
Clean URLs without IDs look more professional and are easier for users to remember, giving your site a boost in both SEO and usability.
3. Incorporate Keywords into Your URLs
A key hack for improving SEO is to include relevant keywords directly in your URLs. Keywords tell search engines what your page is about and improve your chances of ranking for those terms. For example, a URL like “www.example.com/organic-skincare-products” is far more valuable for SEO than a generic URL with no keywords.
Best practices for keyword-rich URLs:
Use relevant keywords that accurately describe the page content.
Keep URLs short and avoid keyword stuffing.
Ensure the URL matches the search intent of your audience.
4. Set Up Custom URLs for Important Pages
PrestaShop automatically generates URLs for products and categories, but manually customizing URLs for important pages can give you an edge. By creating custom URLs, you can add focus keywords and optimize the structure for SEO.
How to create custom URLs:
Go to the “Catalog” section in your PrestaShop back office and select the product or category.
Under the “SEO” tab, edit the “Friendly URL” field to create a custom URL.
Save the changes.
This allows you to take full control of your URL structure and create keyword-optimized URLs for critical pages.
5. Avoid Duplicate Content with Canonical URLs
Duplicate content is a common issue in eCommerce sites, especially when products are available in multiple categories. Search engines struggle to determine which version of the page to index, which can hurt your rankings. Implementing canonical URLs ensures that search engines know which version of a page to prioritize.
How to set up canonical URLs:
Go to the product page in your PrestaShop back office.
In the “SEO” tab, enter the preferred URL in the “Canonical URL” field.
By using canonical URLs, you prevent duplicate content issues and ensure search engines focus on the right page.
6. Optimize URLs for Language and Region
If your PrestaShop store caters to multiple regions or languages, you should optimize your URLs to reflect the differences. For instance, creating language-specific URLs or regional variations helps search engines understand the target audience of each page, which can improve your site’s local SEO performance.
How to optimize for language and region:
Use PrestaShop’s multi-language feature to create language-specific URLs.
Set up geo-targeting through region-specific URLs.
This customization improves the user experience for international visitors and helps you rank higher in local search results.
7. Use 301 Redirects for URL Changes
If you ever need to change a URL, be sure to set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. A 301 redirect tells search engines that the page has permanently moved, allowing them to transfer the ranking power of the old URL to the new one.
Without a redirect, you risk losing SEO value and causing 404 errors, which can hurt both your search rankings and user experience.
How to set up 301 redirects:
Use PrestaShop’s built-in redirect function or a module like “301 Redirect Pro” to manage your redirects.
Alternatively, you can manually set up redirects in your .htaccess file.
Redirects ensure that both search engines and users always end up on the right page, maintaining your SEO momentum.
8. Regularly Audit Your URLs for Optimization
Regularly auditing your URLs is one of the most effective hacks for maintaining SEO success. As your PrestaShop site grows, you’ll want to ensure that all your URLs are still optimized, free from errors, and up-to-date with SEO best practices.
What to check in a URL audit:
Look for broken or dead links that lead to 404 errors.
Identify any overly long or complex URLs that could be simplified.
Ensure that URLs are still keyword-optimized and relevant.
You can use SEO tools like SEMrush or Screaming Frog to run audits and detect any potential URL issues. Regular audits help you catch problems early and keep your site optimized for search engines.
Conclusion
Optimizing your PrestaShop friendly URL structure is a critical aspect of improving your site’s SEO and enhancing user experience. By following these 8 hacks—ranging from enabling friendly URLs to conducting regular audits—you’ll create a more SEO-friendly, user-friendly URL structure that helps your PrestaShop store rank higher in search results.
Whether you’re cleaning up your URLs or customizing them with relevant keywords, these steps will simplify the SEO process and bring long-term benefits to your store’s visibility and performance.