What is a WordPress URL?
WordPress URL is actually the address where your basics like WordPress files and folders are stored. It also includes your admin pages, plugins, media files, admin pages and themes, etc. In simple words, this is the address your visitors will type in order to reach your website.
Why is it important to make your WordPress URL SEO friendly?
Creating an SEO friendly WordPress URL will help you improve your SEO. It is important to make your WordPress URL SEO friendly because it helps in improving your organic search visibility. Improved organic search visibility will increase your exposure ultimately leading to an improved SEO ranking.
How to make my URLs SEO friendly?
Following are some of the most basic and effective techniques to make your URL SEO friendly.
Start by getting a single root version of your domain
You might not know but several variations exist to your root domain. What happens is when you activate your page, it causes the variations to act as functional URLs that are identical to your page. It includes the homepage as well as every single page of the site.
SEO Agency experts suggest that there can be four to five different domain variations for URLs. If all 4 to 5 variations successfully render your site, they are going to look like the mirrored versions of your site.
How is it affecting my site?
Now you might be wondering how it is affecting your site? Is it harming my site in any way? The answer is yes. It affects your SEO. It affects the total traffic coming to your page and it reduces the overall ranking of your page.
How can I fix it?
So, what you are going to do is that you are going to pick one of the “HTTP” versions and direct all the remaining versions to the primary version of your choice. It will solve your problem as all the indexing, rankings and link value will be redirected to the primary site causing an overall improvement in your SEO.
Another important point to check is that your website is fully encrypted with an SSL certification otherwise, it can be harmful to your site from a security and SEO standpoint.
Which of the domain variations should I choose as my primary or standard version?
“HTTPS” is the best choice while selecting a primary domain. It is so because it has a minor ranking signal in Google’s algorithm and also because Google requires HTTPS for securing data on Chrome.
These two reasons make HTTPS the best choice as the primary domain to help you rank better and improve the user experience
Even if you have any other version of HTTP as your primary domain, you can change your primary domain to HTTPS to strengthen your website URLs in the eyes of Google. Not only that, but it will also put your website in a better and elevated position for good rankings in SEO.
Form an SEO- friendly permalink structure
What is a permalink?
Permalink is the full URL that you see and use for your site. It is actually a permanent link and is destined to stay the same for a long period of time. You can customize your own permalink
If you want your content to be recognized by Google, you have to incorporate keywords and phrases relevant to your content, in your URL. People tend to click on URLs with better-organized keywords than the vague numeric URLs. Your URL is supposed to tell Google as well as the users that what your content is actually about. You have to make sure that your URL is clear enough for Google to place it in the exact category it is supposed to be in. the best URL is one that is both SEO- and user-friendly.
How can I change my permalink structure?
To change your permalink structure in WordPress, you have to go to the settings. There you click on the permalinks option. Here you will find a number of options from which you can choose your desired type. You click on your desired permalink type and then click on save changes.
Which permalink structure is the best suited for my page or website?
There are around five to six different permalink structure types that you can choose from. Let’s go through them one by one so that you can decide for yourself which one is the best choice for your page.
- Plain permalink: it comprises of a simple description of words. It doesn’t describe your content at all hence, not a good option for SEO.
- Permalink with day and name: this type of permalink not only talks about your content but also shows the exact publishing date of the content. It is a good option for SEO.
- Permalink with month and name: it is the same as the above one with a slight change that instead of day, the month of publishing is shown. It is also a good option for SEO.
- Numeric permalinks: this type of link doesn’t describe your content.it is not a good option for SEO.
- Permalinks with post name: in this option, you can personalize your own URL matching your content. This is the most optimal and appropriate choice for your website.
Site architecture and URL structure
It is one of the most crucial steps for any website or page. To get a good SEO, it is important to align all your URLs to content topics and keywords of each section and each page respectively. It certainly gets tricky because of demographics. For example, SEO companies in Dubai might have a different site structure that is influenced by Arabic language also.
Make your URLs SEO friendly by rewriting them
Wrote your URLs without keeping the critical in mind? Don’t worry about it. You can rewrite them. Here is a summary of points to keep in mind while rewriting your URLs.
- Try to keep your URLs as focused and targeted as possible. Avoid adding words like “a”, “the” etc.
- Keep your URLs as short as possible. The more focused and pinpoint the URL is, the catchier it sounds.
- It is very important to keep your URL formatting consistent. If you are using dashes, use them throughout. The same goes for underscore. WordPress prefers using dashes (-) to separate words.
It’s the detailing and consistency that helps improve your SEO. Leading SEO companies suggests It is very important to optimize your URLs and make sure that it includes all the important phrases and keywords and you are all set to go!