Strategies to create WordPress url seo friendly

Launching a fully fledge website is only part of the work businesses need to do to sell a brand and enhance their web visibility. To achieve higher rankings on search engines like Google and Bing, you need to think critically about Search Engine Optimization. The popular website creation tool, WordPress offers users a perfect platform to go online. As a preferred CMS, WordPress contains many in-built features designed to make content optimization for web searches fast and easy. Before looking at the strategies for making WordPress URL (Universal Resource Locator) SEO friendly, you need to understand what a SEO friendly WordPress URL means.

The WPBeginner describes a SEO friendly URL as a web address that contains keywords that briefly explain the article. Since the URL can be read by both humans and machines, having a friendly URL can go a long way to improve a site’s search engine ranking. An example of a SEO friendly URL is as follows; “http://www.wpbeginner.com/how-to-install-wordpress/”. Note the easy to read post name appearing in the URL. This is unlike the a non SEO friendly URL that looks like this “http://www.wpbeginner.com/?p=10467”. Older versions of WordPress did not feature Permalinks (Permanent links), which is colloquially referred to as pretty URLs. This was changed with the introduction of WordPress 4.2 that co-opted SEO friendly URLs.

The most common types of Permalink settings in WordPress are namely: Plain, Post Name, Numeric, Month and Name and Day and Name. You could also create a Custom Permalink structure by entering the category and tag base under the custom structure tab. Although the whole process of creating search engine optimized URLs is not highly complicated, you can contact a SEO Expert to help you structure the URL at different levels from post type to categories with little effort. Creating a SEO friendly URL to enhance SEO is fairly simple, according to Searchenginejournal.com below are the steps to follow:

1. Pick a SEO Friendly Permalink Structure

The use of relevant keywords is crucial as it helps Google recognize the content in your site, thereby matching the content with certain popular search phrases to enhance your site’s online visibility. For example, if you want people to search for a dance troupe called, Triangle 4 Wheel that is visiting your town for a concert and charity events in Miami, you can make your URL appear like this: www.sample.com/epic-triangle-dancing-troupe-miami-concert instead of something like www.sample.com/?p-123. Google and people searching the web will easily understand the optimized content since it is SEO friendly.

When selecting a URL structure in WordPress, you can choose from a list of common settings available from the Plain Permalink to Custom Permalink. A Plain Permalink setting is the least useful option when considering SEO because there is nothing in the URL that describes the content or page. The Numeric Permalink setting is also not a SEO friendly option because there is nothing in the URL to describe your page or content. The Day and Name Permalink can help Google identify what your content is all about since it recognizes the publishing date.

Post Name is undoubtedly the most widely used URL settings. The Permalink makes it easy for users to personalize their URL for optimal SEO results. Users are allowed to choose a URL that matches their page or content. With regards to the Custom Permalink settings, you can decide on a WordPress specific tag to use for your customization purposes. This means you can add a subset such as Category before the Post Name to give Goggle more insights into the content of the website. The URL might look something like this and this “/%category%/%postname%/”. Other variations of the same can be strung.

2. Make your URLs User Friendly by rewriting

There is an expressway of writing URLs to ensure they conform to SEO practices. The first thing you need to do is keep your URLs focused. To do this, you need to remove all words that are irrelevant and don’t add value to the readers. Some of the words that should be avoided include “of” and “the” among others. Secondly, although using short URLs is not a ranking factor, it is an important step in ensuring URL conformity. Finally, you need to keep your URL formatting method consistent in all your posts and pages. For instance, if you decide to use (dash -) as word separator, avoid using the (underscore _ ) for page separation. The WordPress uses the dash to separate words entered in the URL.

3. Make your URLs SEO Friendly using Plugins

Since WordPress doesn’t have up to date Plugins designed to assist users formulate SEO friendly URL’s. You might consider creating SEO friendly URLs manually. With the right keywords set up, resources like Yoast SEO plug can be used to restructure the URL with choice keywords.

4. Acquire SSL Certificate

Security has become a critical component in Google algorithms along with HTTPS signal, as such everything should be done to ensure the safeguards are put in place. An efficient way to do this is make sure your website is fully encrypted using an SSL certificate. The SSL security options are designed to protect the primary host name, subdomains and multiple domains. The other areas of focus include address bar padlock and ensuring address bar padlock. Enabling HTTPS on WordPress website can enhance your user experience and help you achieve higher search engine rankings.

Conclusion
As pointed above, there are many ways to create SEO friendly URLs in WordPress, the techniques range from setting SEO friendly Permalink structures to using appropriate Plugins. The choice of technique largely depends on elements like the target audience, kind of website and the client’s industry or market niche. As a precautionary measure; if your site has been running for over 6 months, you should avoid replacing the Permalink structure to safeguard against the loss of social media share counts and current SEO rankings. In case you are not very well-versed with the idea of creating or redirecting permalink structure, consider hiring a SEO expert.

Author Bio: Joel House helps small to medium businesses grow their revenues through increased search traffic. As the owner of Australia’s highest ranking SEO Company, he has a burning desire to help small businesses with SEO that actually works. When he isn’t helping small businesses grow, he is furiously reading to stay on the cutting edge.