Changing URL structure and 301ing, worth it?

Site is doing great, but I am trying to squeeze every last drop out of onpage seo. Here is a hypothetical for a shoe repair site:

shoefix.com/brands/nike/air

I am considering this.

shoefix.com/repair/nike/air

Where "brand" isn't ever searched for, while "repair" is often included in the search phrase (e.g. nike air repair, repair my nike airs)

Is this sort of 301 worth it or am I over optimizing? Anyone ever done something like this? All opinions are welcomed.

The site isn't broke, do I fix it? Or maybe I am losing out by lacking an additional keyword in my URLs

Urls do have a slight impact on rankings, though the importance of urls has decreased over the years.
That being said, why would you go for a 301 instead of just creating the page and linking people directly to that page? A 301 seems redundant.

mantic0re said:

Urls do have a slight impact on rankings, though the importance of urls has decreased over the years.
That being said, why would you go for a 301 instead of just creating the page and linking people directly to that page? A 301 seems redundant.

Click to expand...

I agree, I think.

You should create a new page targeting repair terms. If the page is performing well, don't worry about changing it. Target those long tail terms with new pages and let those gain traction over time. It will take longer for the pages to earn organic traffic, unless you have crazy high authority and spread your juice excellently. Or you throw links directly to that page.

Yeah I don't think its worth the risk at this point in the game. The lesson here is better site planning next time. Still the site rocks and I'm happy. Thanks.