How to Use Permalinks to Enhance Your WordPress SEO Blog
By default, WordPress gives you this dynamic URL for your post: “http://yourdomain.com/?p=SOME-ID-NUMBER". The best SEO permalink structure is to have your post appears with ‘category’ and the ‘post title’ in the URL.
This looks something like this: “http://yourdomain.com/category/post-title"
Why is this the best SEO permalink structure compares to the other structures?
To simply put, this permalink structure allows you to have ‘more’ keyword loaded into the URL of your post. Since the category that you’ve placed your post under usually related to the post title (which hopefully is keyword-loaded itself), you will have the extra SEO benefit if other people use that permalink structure to link your post.
How to Change the Default Permalinks to ‘Category/Post-Title’ Permalinks
In order to change the default permalink structure, you need to go to “OPTIONS -> Permalinks" in your admin panel and paste this code into the BOX after “Custom Structure:"
/%category%/%postname%/
Next, click the “Update Permalink Structure >>" button: if WordPress does NOT automatically update the permalink structure to for you–don’t worry–just do the following:
-If you don’t have a .htaccess file in your root directory (public_html/.htaccess) already, just ‘create a new file’ and name it .htaccess and place it in “public_html" directory or whatever directory you have your WordPress blog installed (e.g. public_html/blog/.htaccess, which is equivalent to http://yourdomain.com/blog/.htaccess).
-Then, copy and paste the code WordPress gives you after clicking on the “Update Permalink Structure >>" button into your .htaccess file. *Note: You need to click on the some option (’Edit’?) of your .htaccess file to open up a window to paste your permalink code in the file.
The code is same as following if you are using WordPress 2.0 or higher:
Just copy and paste that ‘mod-rewrite’ code into your .htaccess file, save it, and you are DONE!
Now, your old AND new post will automatically carry the category the post is assigned to, plus the title name of that post:
http://yourdomain.com/blog/category/post-title
*Note: That’s the default ‘Post-Slug’ structure after the updated permalink, but if you want to change the name of the ‘post-title’ in the post’s URL, just go to ‘Post-Slug’ (located on the right-hand side of the “Write" page) and input/change to what name you want.
Blogging with Wordpress offers two huge advantages:
1. It's FREE to download and use
2. The Search Engines, in particular Google, love Wordpress blogs
Wordpress is open source software, which means it's free to use. When you choose a hosting account, try and choose one that uses a control panel called "CPanel", because installing Wordpress becomes as easy as clicking a handful of icons, it really is simple!
So you've bought a domain name, found a hosting company with CPanel and installed Wordpress on your new domain! In theory you're ready to make your first post! But before you do, read on!
Before you post, you need to configure your blog and optimise it for the search engines, doing this before you post makes life a lot easier for the future.
As Wordpress is open source, developers around the world have written literally hundreds of plugins that enhance the functionality of your blog, and again the majority are free to install. Take a look at Wordpress.org where you'll find hundreds of free plugins. Ones I recommend are:
- Installer (install this one first, simplifies plugin installations)
- All In One SEO Pack (optimises your posts)
- Adsense Manager (adds Adsense blocks to your posts)
- Google XML Site Maps (creates a site map for your blog)
- Ultimate Tag Warrior (essential plugin for managing tags)
- Sociable (assists with social bookmarking)
Next, within your dashboard, select Options in the menu and then Permalinks. You need to change the settings on this page in order to optimise your post's url for the search engines, this change will ensure your keywords appear in the url. In the Custom Options box, insert the following text:
/%category%/%postname%/
Typing this will optimise your posts, but you must be careful only to ever select one category per post in the future, and not change a post's category after you've published it!
When you post with Wordpress, it automatically notifies (known as pinging) blog directories of your new content, they index it based on the tags you assign. The search engine robots regularly visit these directories, and as a result your new post will be indexed by them very quickly. Rapid indexing is one of the huge advantages of blogging!
In your blogs configuration, you should add as many directory sites as possible to ping, in addition to the default url. Simply search on the web for "ping list".
Lastly, the appearance of your site needs to be optimised. You don't want to use the basic template that comes with Wordpress. If you do a search online for Wordpress themes, you'll find hundreds to download for free.org again in their themes directory. Whilst there are hundreds of free themes around, I never seem to find one that perfectly meets my needs, so I often end up buying one!
Once you've installed the theme of your choice, activated all of your plugins, and made the configuration adjustments I've recommended, you're ready to post, so what are you waiting for!
Both M.t. Nguyen & Richard Taylor are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.