One of the crucial things that you need to do for on-page SEO is to use your keyword in the url of your page. WordPress makes it really easy. You just need to make sure that your WordPress uses SEO friendly URLs instead of just a bunch of all sorts of characters that look like a dog’s breakfast. Other than not being cool for SEO (because such urls don’t contain your keyword), it’s also hard to memorize such links. Especially when numbers in those IDs get by a long shot bigger. So, you most def need to change that.
How to Fix Messy URLs
First off, you need to login to your WordPress dashboard and just go to Settings > Permalinks.
Before we move on, let me explain your what a permalink actually is. A permalink is just a permanent link. So, that’s where the ‘perma’ part is coming from.
Now, be sure to tick the Custom Structure checkbox and specify the following value in the text field.
/%postname%/
This value means that your url will contain your site address (by default) and the name of your post.
Before and After
So, say you have a post about funny cats that is entitled… well, funny cats. If before enabling user friendly URLs , it looks as follows:
http://yoursite.com/blog/?p=123
with User Friendly URLs enabled, it’s gonna look like this:
http://yoursite.com/blog/funny-cats/
Best SEO Structure for Permalinks
That’s basically the best structure for your permalinks for a few reasons:
- it’s concise so that users can easily memorize your permalink if necessary
- it contains your keyword (provided you used it in your post title)
- it has no (for the most part) redundant details, such as year, month day ,etc.
Since the last statement is a bit controversial because there are cases when you DO need more details in your permalinks, I’m gonna show you now how that works .
Post Dates Can Be Tricky
You may want to have WordPress show the year and the month in your permalink, but it’s not exactly a good idea because some users try to search for the most up to date info and they can just go away from your blog if they notice that the post is not exactly fresh. If you still want to do that, just insert the following value in your Custom Structure text field:
/%year%//%postname%/
As you can see, I just added /%year%/ to already existing %postname%/
In case you also want to mention the month of your post, use the following structure tag combination:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/
More Info on Permalinks in WordPress
You can slice and dice different structure tags, but remember that using just %postname%/ is best for SEO anyways. That being said, if you need more info to play around with your permalink settings, check the Using Permalinks page on WordPress.org.
Possible Issues
If you can’t enable permalinks in your WordPress, check back with your hosting provider to make sure that the mod_rewrite module is installed on your server.
Slideshow on SEO Friendly URLs
Screencast on SEO Friendly URLs
Useful Links
How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs (Step-by-Step)
How to configure SEO Friendly URLs (11 Tips)
Bottom Line
All in all, it’s extremely easy to switch on User friendly URLs in WordPress. And it’s one of the cases where you need to stick to the “KISS” principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid!) because it’s easier both for the user and search engines to work with such URLs.
