Best Practices for Creating User-Centric URL Structures in PrestaShop

Your site’s URL structure needs to be user-centric, or you are losing a good opportunity for SEO. Plus, good URL structures also improve the navigation and help shoppers understand what to expect on a page, ultimately boosting click-through rates from search results. 

Proper Prestashop URL structure means that search engines can have clarity on the page content, which, as a result, makes indexing more efficient and rankings more accurate. But here comes the problem with Prestashop's default URL structure, which is not as robust as it contains numerical IDs, unnecessary parameters, and more. Thus, it could easily confuse the potential buyers and search engines as well. 

Therefore, following a proper URL structure is very important for your Prestashop store’s success, and this interesting blog post serves as the best guide to learn how to make user-centric Prestashop URL structures. So, without further ado, let’s get started. 

Key Principles of User-Centric URLs

You have to keep the users in mind when crafting URLs while keeping them relevant, readable, and SEO optimized. As part of the Prestashop seo best practices, just ensure to keep the following three key principles in mind when working on the URL structures of your Prestashop store. 

1.  Keep URLs Short and Descriptive

The shorter your URL is, the better it is for users to read, remember, and share. Such sweet URLs also reduce the risks of being tagged as spammy. 

Instead of:

fmemodules.com/index.php?id_product=123&controller=product

use:

fmemodules.com/pretty-urls

The revised version clearly conveys to both users and search engines what the page is about.

2.  Use Hyphens Instead of Underscores

Google treats hyphens (-) as word separators but does not do the same for underscores (_). 

So a URL like:

fmemodules.com/pretty_urls

It may be interpreted as one word, which reduces its relevance in the search queries. Therefore, ensure to use hyphens for separating words for understandable and clean URLs, Prestashop store requires:

fmemodules.com/pretty-urls

3. Include Relevant Keywords

You must incorporate primary keywords into your URL slugs, which is one of the best ways to improve Prestashop SEO without requiring additional optimization. 

For example:

yourstore.com/leather-wallet-men

This URL is not only helpful in ranking your site, but it also increases the likelihood that users will click, as they recognize terms related to their intent.

Indeed, it is challenging to apply these principles throughout your store, particularly when you are running a large setup. That’s where the Pretty URL Module comes in handy, which automates and streamlines most of these tasks.

Structuring URLs for Products and Categories

Your Prestashop store’s URL structure should reflect your site’s hierarchy and product categories. 

The FME’s Pretty URL Module is a very effective tool for this purpose as it automatically generates clean, keyword-optimized URLs that follow best practices, without the need to edit code. Here’s how it helps for products and categories pages. 

Product URLs

Default PrestaShop product URLs often include IDs and unnecessary parameters:

fmemodules.com/17-advanced-seo-module

The Pretty URL Module removes these IDs and cleans up the slug:

fmemodules.com/advanced-seo-module

You also have the option to customize these slugs on target keywords, such as: 

fmemodules.com/pretty-urls

Category URLs

The category URLs should reflect both the category name and its relationship to the overall site. 

Instead of:

fmemodules.com/category.php?id_category=5

The module rewrites it as:

fmemodules.com/prestashop-modules

Or even:

fmemodules.com/prestashop-modules/seo

This is the SEO friendly URL Prestashop store needs, which is helpful for both the users and the search engine to understand the context of the catalog. 

Multilingual and Multistore Compatibility

Be it PrestaShop 9 or any other version you are using, the best thing about the Pretty URL module is that it supports multilingual stores and can auto-generate translated URLs for each language. For instance, 

English: yourstore.com/winter-coat

French: yourstore.com/manteau-hiver

Custom URL Editing and Preview

You can effortlessly and manually edit slugs to get full control over the keyword targeting. It also provides a preview of how URLs will appear, helping you optimize structure before going live.

Thus, it gets easy to align product and category URLs with search trends and user expectations to boost engagement and visibility. 

Testing and Monitoring Your Prestashop URL Structure

Once you are satisfied with URL optimization, it’s important to monitor their performance and catch plus correct any indexing or duplication issues. There are so many ways to do that, including:

1.  Google Search Console

It’s a free Google-powered tool that lets you:

• Check and analyze how your URLs are being crawled and indexed
• Figure out the duplicate content or crawl errors
• Track which pages receive impressions and clicks in search results
• Manually submit sitemaps to guide Google's indexing

You can also make use of the URL Inspection Tool to test individual URLs and ensure that redirects or canonical tags are working correctly.

2.  SEO Audit Tools

You can also leverage the premium platforms like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Screaming Frog can scan your site for:

• Duplicate URLs
• Broken links
• Canonical tag issues
• Parameter-based indexing problems

Detailed insights from these tools will be a great help in fine-tuning your strategy, and all URL optimizations are functioning as expected.

3. Performance Monitoring

You must also keep an eye on the bounce rates, page load times, and engagement metrics through Google Analytics or similar tools. Clean, readable URLs often contribute to lower bounce rates and higher time-on-site.

Also, you have to regularly test the Prestashop URL structure to ensure both the SEO and UX benefits long after implementation.

Take Away

A user-centric Prestashop URL structure is very important as it not only helps in SEO enhancement but also ensures a better shopping experience. It’s being tested by the experts that clean and keyword-rich URLs improve navigation, search engine visibility, and also user trust in your e-commerce store. 

We have also discussed how relying on the powerful Prestashop Pretty URL module can automate such things for you and give you a competitive advantage over your competitors.