The default permalink structure that yo get when you install WordPress is NOT very SEO (search engine) friendly and will not help your blog posts to rank well for your chosen keywords in the search engine results.

The “permalink” structure is basically the file structure that wordpress uses to record where you blog posts and pages are stored on your site.

the default option is usually like this:

http://homewebpage.net/?p=123

although you also have two other options:

http://homewebpage.net/2008/03/11/sample-post/

and

http://homewebpage.net/archives/123

Non of these are particularly search engine friendly, I won’t go in to all the reasons why, as this is not a post about SEO, but rather about how to optimise your blog for the best results.

The last option available on the “Options” -> “Permalinks” settings page in the Admin area of your blog is for a custom permalink structure that you can specify yourself.

The best format to use to make your posts search engine friendly is (imho) this:

/%postname%/

This is better for two main reasons, first it’s a short format with no “?” in, and second it will include any keywords that you include in your blog post title.

If you’re not including keywords in your blog post title your should be, it helps the search engines know exactly what your post it about, and helps you to get better search engine rankings.

Oh, and keep the title relatively short as well, the search engines prefer shorter “urls” or file structures, so keep it short, attention grabbing and to the point, using your keywords for the post.

SEO lesson over.

IMPORTANT:

Now before you rush off and make the changes to your blog, you need to be aware that if you have already got posts on your blog, changing this structure will mean that any of your existing posts that are indexed in the search engines will have the old file structure, which means that when someone finds that post in the search engine results and then clicks on it they will end up on a “404 page not found” error page, as the indexed page no longer exists, because it’s effectively moved to a new address.

As usual there’s a simple fix for this, a plugin called “Deans Permalink Migration”, which you can find the download link for on the BlogTactics Plugins page

Now here’s the potential hiccup..

To work it’s magic the plugin needs to add some code to a file on your site called .htaccess and some hosting plans are set up in such a way that the plugin will not be able to make the necessary changes and you will get the “404 page not found” error for all your posts, don’t panic, there’s another simple solution, which I show you how to do in the video below: -

You can grab the “mod rewrite” code you need for the .htaccess file on my free blogging resources site, it’s the third link down on the left hand side under “Misc. Blog Stuff”.

So all you need to do is download the .htaccess file to your local hard disk, edit it with text pad or similar, paste the “mod rewrite” code in to the file (at the bottom will do) and then upload the file back to your site.

All fixed and you will now have an SEO friendly file structure for your blog that will help your posts rank better in the search engine results.

Tags: Blog SEO