Blogs and websites are created as outlets of information, creativity, and imagination.
They are here to educate and entertain people across the Internet.
This commitment to making people as informed and entertained as possible – and the monetary gains that come as a bonus – has led several WordPress-built websites to think of ways how to increase their visibility in the large world of the Internet.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a process of enhancing a website’s Internet visibility.
To better understand this permalink, let us break it down into specific parts:
Protocol
This is the first part of a URL. It’s the method your website uses to tell the browser how data will be transferred across the Internet.
Domain Name
This is literally the address name of your website. It’s where the browser will be directed to.
File Name
This address points the browser as well as Google’s crawlers to the particular place on your site where it needs to navigate to.
Parameters
Parameters are set values that make a web page dynamic. They can also be thought of as your website giving specific instructions to a search engine. Parameters are usually preceded by a question mark (?) within a URL.
Permalinks are permanent, as its name implies. It means that whatever you do to a particular web page – update the content, change the layout, or whatever – the permalink remains the same.
Once it is published, it cannot be changed. Your published web page’s content can be edited as you wish, but not the permalinks.
Trying to change a published web page’s permalink could ultimately result to a broken link. This could lead to your website displaying a 404 error, which may lead to search engines penalizing your site and hurting your SEO ranking status.
If your blog post’s permalink happens to contain that same keyword the user typed in, there are bigger chances that the search engine will display your webpage to the user.
One little problem with WordPress is that SEO-friendly permalinks aren’t activated by default. Your WordPress blog post’s permalink could look something like this by default:
https://www.blogbeginner.com/?p=123
This kind of permalink is considered random and isn’t good for SEO. That is why you must change this default permalink structure first before you hit publish on your blog post.
Also, you need to add a few modifications to your permalink text to make it more appealing to search engines like Google.
Here are tips on how to optimize your permalink structure to make it SEO-friendly:
The Post Name structure is preferred by several WordPress users because of its simplicity and straightforwardness. One look at this kind of permalink, and the readers would know what the blog post is all about. These kinds of permalinks often contain only the title of the blog post, so it’s easier for both readers and search engines to know the webpage’s contents. You’ll find no random strings of parameters or letter-number-character combinations on Post Name permalinks.
To change your permalinks to Post Name structure, follow these steps:
HTTPS protocols use SSL certificates to make a website secured. SSL certificates give encrypted and secured communication means between the browser and the website itself.
If you use sites with URLs starting with the https://, you’re protected when you share personal or sensitive data.
One important factor to consider is that Google ranks HTTPS protocol sites higher than those with HTTP since 2014. It’s been an SEO indicator for several years now.
To switch your WordPress blog easily to an HTTPS protocol, you can use services such as Let’s Encrypt. They create and distribute SSL certificates throughout your site while keeping existent data safe and untouched.
3. Insert the most relevant keywords into your permalinks.
Relevant keywords are often found in the title of your blog post. Pick those important keywords out and include them in the permalink of your page.
For example, your blog post is a tutorial of how to create basic Tunisian crochet stitches. People will likely hit up a search engine and type “tutorial Tunisian crochet” if they wanted to learn how to do this particular crochet stitch.
The title of your blog could be “A Quick Tutorial of Basic Tunisian Crochet Stitch”. Your permalink could look like this:
Your permalink now contains all the relevant keywords that people and search engines will be looking for. The permalink is reduced only to the basic keywords that point out the main gist of your blog post.
4. Use dashes instead of underscores.
Google wants permalinks and URLs that are easy to interpret. Dashes and underscores in permalinks are interpreted by Google differently, and it is found out that Google reads permalinks with dashes better than those with underscores.
Google takes dashes as word separators in a permalink. Hence, Google reads this as “tutorial Tunisian crochet” and interprets the site as having a connection to Tunisian crochet techniques.
It will be relevant to several searches related to Tunisian crochet, such as:
Underscores really don’t separate words in a permalink. That is why Google will read the permalink above as “tutorialtunisiancrochet” which isn’t really that understandable.
Google will have a hard time relating this underscored permalink to Tunisian crochet searches.
This is why underscores should be avoided in permalinks and dashes must be used to separate multiple keywords instead.
5. Shorten your permalinks as much as possible.
Long permalinks are frowned upon by search engines and Internet users because they are hard to remember and appear spammy.
Keeping permalinks with fewer words in its slug is a better way to go.
These permalinks are also aesthetically attractive, making users click on them without second thoughts.
It is advised that permalink slugs carry only 3-5 words spread out in less than 60 characters. These words must be carefully selected to match the main keywords in your entire post.
Longer permalink slugs with more than 5 keywords in it may rank lower than shorter, straightforward ones.
The culprits of lengthy permalinks are called “stop words”. These include words like “is”, “and”, “are”, “the”, and many similar words.
Sometimes, the permalinks carry the entire title of the WordPress blog post including the stop words, making it too lengthy. Here is an example:
The shorter permalink is easier on the eyes and can also be quickly remembered by a site visitor, as opposed to the longer one.
Stop words are unnecessary and are excluded, making the permalink simple, concise, and straightforward.
But be wary of using URL shortening services such as Bitly. These services do shorten URLs significantly, but they simply act as a redirect that helps you track links using a third party.
They aren’t really helpful for SEO. Better to shorten your permalink the natural way than use these shortening services.
6. Remove publication dates from the permalink slugs.
People are always on the lookout for fresh and new contents. Adding a date to your permalinks won’t really help in this matter.
Sometimes you will encounter a post that looks like this:
This kind of permalink uses the Day and Name structure. The permalink shown above means that the post was published on May 15, 2011.
WordPress blogs that feature news are often the ones who use this kind of permalink structure. News-related blog sites often need these dates, so it’s perfectly sensible for them to use dated permalinks.
But if your blog contents aren’t really date-specific, consider removing publication dates from your permalink slugs. Stick to the Post Name option for structuring your permalinks.
Changing a published post’s permalink for whatever reason could result to a fatal 404 error, which is usually frowned upon by search engines and blog visitors.
The only acceptable time to edit a permalink is if you will create a 301 redirect. This redirect feature will make sure that content from your old permalink will be properly redirected to the newly-edited permalink.
This will help avoid chances of having 404 errors on your site.
Do this only when it is absolutely necessary to, not just because you want your old, non-SEO friendly permalinks to be optimized.
Those are some of the ways in which you can plan the best structure of your WordPress blog’s permalinks.
Permalink might not be on top of everyone’s SEO to-do-list, but it is just as important as keyword research and similar SEO stuff.
The most useful permalink structure for SEO is usually the Post Name structure.
Use this in your permalinks while incorporating vital keywords in the shortest way possible to achieve good SEO rankings.
Other crucial points to consider in creating SEO-friendly permalinks include an https:// protocol, excluded publication dates, and the use of dashes instead of underscores.
The main takeaway is to keep your permalinks as short, clear, and concise as possible.
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