Creating SEO-friendly URL structures are one of the most popular and easiest SEO optimization strategies that make your WordPress website’s indexation as easy as pie. However, as no one wouldn’t expect, there are many websites, which are still using incorrect and suboptimal links.
Selecting the most appropriate and SEO-friendly URL has been the focus of the digital marketing industry for quite a long time now. It is why many SEO-friendly WordPress website designs have grown popular in the last few years. In this post, we will observe main elements of the URLs, and explain how to create their high-ranking and perfect structures.
Table of Contents
Bring ‘www’ & ‘non-www’ Domains Together
Search engines index two most popular versions of your domain, i.e., ‘www’ and ‘non-www’. Consolidating both of these versions is important for your website’s ranking. Most of the SEO professionals just redirect to the first, and then to the second version of a website using 301. It’s true that many wouldn’t worry about different versions of the domain; however, it is important to consolidate them so as to ensure all the backlinks point to the same direction. Thus, displaying all information in a correct manner.
In case, you want to try out a different, more professional way than redirecting, you can explicitly establish a link between both versions with the help of Google Webmaster Tools or canonical tags.
Include Keywords
Keywords are the most important part of SEO. The main keywords of your website must be included in the URL to optimize your posts. Some SEO-professionals fear of over-optimizing the URLs and skip using keywords in the URL structure. But this is the best thing you can do to optimize your website for search engines. There are two ways to include keywords in the URLs-
i) Manually—You just need to implement a simple function, and include it in the functions.php file.
ii) Plugin—Install SEO smart links to add keywords in your URL.
Avoid Repeating Keywords
If you were a user, would you like to see URLs where the same words are repeated multiple times? Creating an SEO-friendly WordPress website design does not include the use of multiple keywords in single URLs. Search engines don’t like this practice and don’t consider such websites for ranking. In fact, Google and Bing do not rely on the number of keywords used in a URL. It will be better if you have simplified, single-matching keywords included in your website’s URLs so that your website is considered by the top search engines.
Canonize multiple URLs
You should canonize two or more URLs through 301 redirect process. If you want to preserve both the versions of URLs, use a rel=canonical. Keep in mind that you are not duplicating, and you are not splitting your rank signals.
In this way, you will have a much better ranking on page 1 and page 2 and earn more visitors than if you let them rank separately.
Make It Readable
A good, SEO-friendly WordPress website design has a clean URL easy to read, and keywords have nothing to do with it. The optimization of URLs is a process that comes later when you want to ensure users click on a particular blog post, and read the content instead of simply understanding what it is about.
In addition, search engines have started to rely more on data and behavioral signals coming from the customers to identify the ranking of a web page. It is all about engagement that dictates the process, and readable URLs put a great impact on the engagement. Readable URLs are friendlier and generate more traffic.
Don’t Use Stop Words
Titles and headlines consist of stop words(like a, an, and, etc.) but you don’t have to include them in the structure of the URLs. It makes URLs easier and shorter. Plus, you don’t have to show prolific grammar in URLs because excluding these keywords will present the information in the same way. The meaning doesn’t change, and readers get the point anyway.
Match URLs and Titles
Unmatched keywords and URLs account for the most frequent bounce rate. The easiest way to optimize your website for search engines is by making a clear connection between URLs and titles. It is important to match the URLs to their respective posts. There is a good reason for this practice: users are informed of the content you are going to provide them just by looking at the keywords contained in the URLs.
Conclusion
It must be clear to you by now that optimizing your website’s URLs isn’t a rocket science. The above, simple tips can help you get a readable and user-friendly URLs. In addition, you can focus more on keyword strategy, and apply it in the most appropriate way. Remember that search engines have grown smarter. Overdoing and repeating keywords won’t help at all. So, put your efforts in implementing tips that are useful for your website.
