In our previous article, we have explained how to Start a WordPress Blog. In this article, we have explained how to Create SEO Friendly URL in WordPress website.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of any website to increase traffic. The SEO has many factors and URL structure is one of the main factor. The short and human readable URLs are important for any website to increase search engine ranking and also easy to remember.
If you’re running website on WordPress or just started a WordPress blog, then it’s very simple to create SEO friendly URLs in WordPress.
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So here in this article, you will learn how to create SEO friendly URLs structure in WordPress. You will also learn
what is SEO URL is and how to create custom SEO URLs in WordPress.
What is SEO Friendly URL?
The SEO friendly URLs are work just like normal URL but these URLs are created with keywords that explain about the page or article. The SEO URLs are easy to read by search engine to understand about article or page to rank them. So if URLs are more search engine friendly, then there will be more chances to rank higher in search engines.
Non Search Friendly URL Example:
https://webdamn.com/?p=77
Search engine friendly URL Example:
https://webdamn.com/how-to-speed-up-wordpress-website/
In the past, WordPress was using NON-SEO URLs by default and we need to create SEO friendly URLs. Right now in current versions, WordPress uses the post name to create URLs that’s fully SEO friendly. Right now if you installed WordPress, your website URLs automatically created as SEO friendly. You can also modify your URLs structure according to your needs from permalink settings.
How to Create SEO Friendly URL in WordPress?
WordPress has Permalinks section to create SEO friendly URLs. You need to go in WordPress Settings=>Permalinks in Admin area to create SEO friendly URLs.
You just need to click Permalinks that take you to Permalinks settings page.
In above Permalinks settings page, you will see following choices to create URLs.
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- Plain
https://webdamn.com/?p=123
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- Date and name
https://webdamn.com/2018/07/28/sample-post/
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- Month and name
https://webdamn.com/2018/07/sample-post/
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- Numeric
https://webdamn.com/archives/123
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- Post name
https://webdamn.com/sample-post/
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- Custom Structure
Here you can create custom URls by using available custom tags like /%category%/, /%postname%/ etc.
Here is explanation of above permalink options:
The Plain option was default WordPress URL structure and its not creating SEO friendly URL.
The Date and name option is creating partially SEO friendly with dates and post name. This option is not fully suitable if website is related to other than news or publication as the URL displayed with start date and if you update content regularly, its still display start publish date in URL.
The Month and name option is also creating partially SEO friendly with number of month and post name. It also not fully suitable because of month name in URL.
The Numeric option is not creating fully SEO friendly and should be avoided.
The Post name option is creating fully SEO friendly and the best for all kinds of website for SEO purpose because it is pretty and readable.
Custom Structure option is also fully SEO friendly and is more suitable to create URLs according to your business needs. To create custom URL structure, you need to select this option and needs to use special tags like below to create custom URLs with category name and post name.
/%category%/%postname%/
As the custom URL structure us the best to create SEO friendly URLs, so here we will discuss discuss the spacial tags that can be used with different combinations to create usefull SEO friendly URLs.
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- %year%
– If you want to create URL with only post poublish year then you can use this tag. But you can create more than one URL using this tag, you need to create combination with other tags to create unique URLs.
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- %monthnum%
If you want to create URL with only month of year of post then you can use this tag. This also needs to use with combination of other tags.
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- %day%
You can use this tag to create URLs with day of the month of the post.
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- %hour%
You can use this tag to create URLs with Hour of the day of the post.
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- %minute%
You can use this tag to create URLs with Minute of the hour of the post.
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- %second%
You can use this tag to create URLs with Second of the minute of the post.
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- %post_id%
With this tag, you can create URL with posts unique id.
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- %postname%
This is the best tag for SEO purpose to create custom URLS as it creates the URL from post title that identify about the post. For example if your post title is “How to Speed up Your WordPress Site” then the URL becomes “how-to-speed-up-wordpress-website”.
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- %category%
With this tag, you can add caregory name to your URLs.
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- %author%
You can also use post author name in your posts URLs with this tag.
After you create the URL structure, you need to click Save changes button to the selected URL structure. When URL structure saved, it will automatically creates .htaccess file and it will start using new URL structure in entire website.
Final Note
If your site is more than one old and its not using plain URL structure then be careful to change URL structure as it will effect your rank and also loose social counts. If you still change URLs, you needs to handle redirection to redirect to correct page. If your website using plain urls then you can change your URLs structure without any issue according to your needs.
We hope that this article helped you lot to create SEO friendly URL structure for your WordPress site.
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