WordPress SEO Tips Part IV – Optimize Your URL’s
To get the most exposure in Google search results from your WordPress blog, each and every posting has to be optimized for keyword phrases.
The most important place for your WordPress blog to have proper keywords is your blog titles – and I’ll talk more about that later in this series. The second best place for your blog to utilize keyword prhases is in the URL of your blog postings.
First, let me make no assumptions here – some of you reading this might not know what I’m referring to when I say “URL”, so let me give a quick overview.
Look up at the address bar for this blog posting – at the top of your computer screen. Do you see this “https://socialmediaseo.net/2009/10/12/wordpress-seo-tips-part-4-url-seo”?
This is the URL (the address) to this blog posting. Now let’s dissect this URL, because everything about it has a purpose, and I’ve optimized it to maximize my exposure in Google search results… here’s how:
* First, I’m using dashes in between keyword phrases in the URL. Dashes are critical because of the way Google crawls and indexes your site. As the Google bots crawl your site, they’re looking for keyword phrases to tag to your pages. Having a dash between keywords in your URL helps Google quickly and easily identify keyword phrases.
* Second, the URL of your WordPress blog postings are a great place to take advantage of other keywords and keyword phrase variations. Notice again on this blog posting – I’ve used keywords that are different than the title of the blog posting for my URL:
Title: WordPress SEO Tips Part IV – Optimize Your URL’s
URL: wordpress-seo-tips-part-4-url-seo
I used the number 4 (numerical value) instead of the roman numeral that’s in my title. I used the singular version of URL instead of the plural version in my title. And I used the keyword “seo” in my URL, which is not even in my title.
So the URL of your WordPress blog posting is basically another rich opportunity for you to maximize keyword phrase exposure in Google search results.
* Third, I ensure that no filler words are present in my URL. So words like “the”, “is”, “and” are not present in the URL. You don’t want to have long drawn out URL’s. Instead, you want to maximize every character space with a good, strong keyword phrase. This in turn will help each one of your WordPress blog postings get the maximum exposure it deserves in Google search results.
It will take some practice to develop a habit of fine tuning the URL’s of your WordPress blog postings. But once you develop the habit, it will become second nature to you.
I’m still learning and developing my URL optimization habits, and I have a long ways to go. But the more I write, and the more I understand the different keyword phrase variations relevant to my articles, the better I’ll get at optimizing my URL’s.
I look forward to any questions, comments, or conversations regarding my WordPress SEO Tips series in the comments section!