Newsletter and Grammar Coach

Refining text to boost search engine rankings is an important goal when creating or updating a website. Experienced web content writers know that “H1” page headings and body text should strategically incorporate key words — the terms that potential customers or clients likely would enter when searching online for products or services. The name chosen for the URL of each page also has a bearing on the way search engines index and rank websites. Beyond that, punctuation in URLs can influence indexing — and the wrong punctuation can weaken search results.

A URL (the abbreviation for “universal resource locator) is the address of a web page. A URL can be as short as the domain name of a site (such as www.editpros.com) or it can consist of directory path information to any of the other pages within a domain (such as www.editpros.com/news.html). That URL points to a file named “news.html” within the website structure.

HTML page file names that consist of more than one word need some form of separation between words. In normal text, an empty space is used to separate one word from another. Spaces should not be used in website URLs, however, because domain addressing servers replace them with the “%20” character combination — meaning that a web file named “/tax accounting.html” would appear to a browser or search engine as “/tax%20accounting.html” — not very intelligible. Instead, a character should be inserted between words. A hyphen is often used (as in “/tax-accounting.html” and that works well. Search engines recognize “tax” and “accounting” as distinct words when they’re separated by commas.

Some websites use the underscore character, rather than the hyphen, as a word separator — as in “/tax_accounting.html” — but we have learned that is inadvisable.

We’ll explain why, but please hang with us through a couple of paragraphs of technical explanation. Although the underscore creates the appearance of white space between words, search engines — notably Google — do not recognize the underscore character as a spacer. They ignore it, and treat the two words as if they were joined into one: “taxaccounting.html.” That does not affect the ranking of the site as much as it does the way the site is indexed in search engine results. That “taxaccounting.html” file name will not contribute to results using either “tax” or “accounting” as internet search terms.

URLs can include characters other than letters, numerals, hyphens and underscores. “Safe” characters also include the dollar symbol, the plus sign, exclamation mark, comma, tilde, asterisk, and opening and closing parentheses. None of those are good choices because they do not resemble spaces, however, and the plus sign should be avoided because some systems reserve it for certain operating functions.

Do not use “unsafe” characters, which include angle brackets < >, square brackets [ ], braces { }, the backslash \, caret ^, percent % symbol or quote “ ” marks.

One related bit of advice: use only lowercase letters in URLs. Some servers may not properly interpret uppercase letters, which can result in a “404” error — “page not found.”

Google’s “search console” for webmasters offers this advice about word spaces: “We recommend that you use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) in your URLs.” Google is not the only search engine, but it captures a market share of 87%, according to Statista, a company that tracks that sort of thing.

The information about hyphens as spaces is helpful for creation of new pages, but may leave you uncertain what do to about existing web pages with file names that use underscores as word spaces. We wondered about that also. The EditPros website has existed since 1996, and we used underscores in a few of our URLs that have remained unchanged (for example, www.editpros.com/about_us.html). The content and appearance of those pages have been updated, of course, but we kept that URL intact. We regard that as an internal page rather than a “landing page,” so we’ll leave it alone rather than changing the URL.

Some sites have done well with underscores as word spaces in multiple-word URLs. Wikipedia consistently uses underscores, but it has enough clout to rank high in search indexing results. Smaller or lesser-known sites lack such influence. So we underscore Google’s encouragement to use hyphens as word separators in website URLs.

Some of the clients who have used our Book Prep service are writers who have previously written books for traditional publishers. They chose to work with us because they wanted to have full control over the finished product and distribution.

Others are first-time authors who were determined to self-publish their manuscripts, but who needed the help of professionals in formatting their work for e-books as well as for print publication. Sacramento County resident Andrea Elizabeth is one such writer. She used Book Prep services to publish her first book, What If You Were God? 21-Day Work And Prayer Book To Find Your Inner Substance.

“I chose EditPros at first because it was a local business. Then, when I met Marti and Jeff, I knew they would be the team to work on my book,” Elizabeth explained. “They are knowledgeable and have years of experience working together as a team. Marti was open and accepting of the value I had put into my first book. She realized right away I was nervous and a bit scared about putting this information out into the world.” She added that EditPros helped her overcome her apprehension.

“Marti gave me the reassurance I needed by offering suggestions and assisting me in deciding on what I really wanted to provide to the world. She also had great intuition in helping me pick my cover for my book,” Elizabeth said. “I told her what I wanted and she literally picked the perfect book cover for me. I was pleased with the formatting and the layout of my book as well. Working with Marti was exceptionally easy and her knowledge of the process was impressive. I look forward to working on my next book with Jeff and Marti soon.”

Matthew B. Zavod, M.D., is an otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor) and reconstructive facial plastic surgeon who envisioned a book to help his own and other children to overcome fear of injections. He appointed EditPros’ Book Prep service to bring his concept to reality. We paired him with talented illustrator Orsolya Orbán, and the result is his whimsical children’s book Dr. Ridiculopickulopot and the Shot.

“When a friend introduced me to Marti and Jeff at EditPros, I had no idea how important they would be in the fulfillment of my dream to publish my children's book. From finding illustrators to formatting pages, Marti and Jeff were consummate professionals: honest, transparent, caring, and comprehensive,” Zavod wrote. “It is an absolute pleasure to work with them. They made the process of publishing clear and simple. In discussions with other friends who are self-published, I realize the importance of the guidance I received from EditPros. Thank you, Marti and Jeff, for your expertise and kindness.”

During Diane Mengali’s childhood in Northern California in the 1950s, her family appeared functional and successful, as far as neighbors, friends and even relatives could tell. Concealed from their view, however, was her mother’s depression, alcoholism and suicidal tendencies, and her father’s intolerant attitude and infidelity. As a child, Diane internalized her mother’s fear and insecurity and by age 10, she had become a chronic worrier.

As a young woman, Diane moved out of the dysfunctional home of her parents. She married in 1966, but within a year experienced the first in what became an ongoing series of panic attacks. In 1983, a psychiatrist diagnosed Diane with agoraphobia, a type of anxiety disorder characterized by fear and avoidance of any situation that may cause panic, usually accompanied by feelings of helplessness, shame and being trapped. A few years later, she found a therapist who guided her through long-dormant painful emotions, and introduced her to behavior modification and the life-saving practice of mindfulness.

Three decades later, she developed the resolve to tell her story publicly, to help other people suffering from undiagnosed agoraphobia. She began writing her thoughts about that, resulting in publication of a book in 2017 with the help of our Book Prep service. Diane hopes that her book, The Quicksand of Agoraphobia: A memoir of panic disorder, will help people understand the torment and terror that people with panic disorder and agoraphobia face daily. With early diagnosis and treatment, panic disorder can be treated with therapy and medication.

As part of the Book Prep package, EditPros professionally formatted the interior pages of each of these books, designed the cover for each, and readied them for print publication. EditPros also formatted and converted the book files into e-book formats for sale through Amazon (Kindle), Apple (iBooks), Barnes & Noble (Nook), and Kobo, by means of submission to IngramSpark’s e-book service.

With Book Prep, authors retain all rights to their books, and collect 100 percent of sales royalties.

Would you like to transform the book of your dreams into reality?

LEARN MORE about the EditPros Book Prep service.

Anita B. wrote:

The grammar coach replies:

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Are you perplexed by some aspect of grammar or word usage? Don't be shy! Ask the "grammar coach" at EditPros and we'll try to help — at no charge, just for the sport of it.

Do you know of a friend or colleague whose office can benefit from EditPros’ services? If you do, you may be able to earn a “referral reward” of up to $500 from EditPros.   

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