SEO Method for Website URLs, Especially to Make WordPress Top 1

In this article, we will discuss the relationship between WordPress SEO and site URLs that aim to Improve WordPress SEO Ranking. The hyperlinks leading to each page should, ultimately, be easier to understand and comprehend for site visitors. This ensures that users as well as search algorithms are able to comprehend the information contained within the article or post and locate it with relative ease.

1. Choose Between WWW and Non-WWW

You, as the owner of a brand-new WordPress website, have the option of giving your domain either a www or a non-www URL. This is one of the most essential decisions you will have to make.

When it comes to maximizing the performance of WordPress, there is neither a superior WWW nor a non-WWW method. However, it is essential that you maintain consistency because Google views them as two distinct URLs. Doing so will help to prevent the creation of duplicate content and will also assist search engines in determining which version should be prioritized.

On the dashboard of your WordPress site, navigate to Settings > General to designate the address you want to use. You can either input the www or non-www version of the domain in the fields labeled WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL). After that, scroll to the bottom and select the Save Changes button.

2. Make the necessary adjustments to the website’s permalink structure

In addition to deciding whether to use a www or non-www address, you must also select the appropriate reference structure. The URLs known as “permalinks” will take site visitors to each individual post and page that you have created with WordPress.

By default, WordPress employs the standard permalink structure, which utilizes the page ID number as the name. For instance, https://example.com/?p=123 is a valid WordPress permalink.

Because URLs such as these do not provide any context for what visitors will discover on the page, it is more likely that these visitors will choose not to visit your website due to the lack of clarity provided by the URL.

To modify the permalink structure that is used by default, navigate to the Settings -> Permalinks page in the WordPress dashboard and select one of the available options. Post names are recommended by the vast majority of WordPress SEO experts because they make it obvious to visitors what they will see on the page or post.

On the other hand, the post name might not always be pertinent. For instance, news websites typically have to take into consideration the moment the post was published, so the post name might not always be relevant there. In addition, websites that have a lot of content that is dense should think about using a custom Structure and including the variable %category% in order to make the content more structured.

Now, there is something very important to bear in mind regarding this situation. If your WordPress website is more than a few months old, altering the structure of the permalinks could result in problems, such as the loss of referral links that were previously in place.

If you are adamant about making the change, you must ensure that a redirect is set up so that users are taken to the appropriate website. You have access to the URL redirect function if you use the premium version of the Yoast SEO plugin.

Read : Where To Find Good Local SEO Services & How Much To Pay

3. Use Custom URLs for Posts and Pages

Apart from permalinks, you also need to optimize URLs. When editing a blog post or article, make sure that the URL slug follows the best SEO tips and techniques.

To edit permalinks individually, open the post or page whose URL you want to change and open the WordPress Editor.

If using the Block Editor, open the Settings panel. Then, select Permalink and change the slug.

Here are tips for optimizing URL slugs:

• Include focus keywords. For example, if you target the keyword “what is web hosting” with your blog post, include that keyword in the permanent link, for example https://example.com/what-is-web-hosting.
• Use short and simple slugs. Google recommends against using long, complex URLs with lots of parameters because they will slow down and make crawling difficult.
• Replace spaces with hyphens. While it’s fine to use underscores, Google prefers hyphens.
• Use only lowercase. URL slugs are case sensitive, which means that Google considers https://example.com/url-slug and https://example.com/URL-slug to be two different URLs. The use of different font sizes may indirectly result in duplication of content.
• Note the use of slashes. As with the previous point, search engines treat https://example.com/url-slug and https://example.com/url-slug/ (with a trailing slash) as separate addresses.
• Avoid numbers and special characters. Symbols make it difficult for links to read. Additionally, some symbols are not included in the URL.