The 6th in the series of…
20 Secret Blogging Tips in 20 Days!
I’m hoping I can make it to 7. Check out the bottom of this post to see the rest.
Today’s topic: Permalinks!
What’s a Permalink? The simplest answer would be…
it’s the direct URL for a particular post or page on a website.
The Permalink isn’t the Title of the post. The Title looks like “Setting up your Permalinks”
There’s also a Meta-Title for the Post that shows up in a search engine result. In this case it would be “How to setup Permalinks in WordPress for better SEO”. It also shows in in Facebook shares, bookmarks and a myriad of other instances. Your browser might be showing that right now in the tab.
The Permalink isn’t the URL for the website either. “http://AreWeConnected.com” It’s close but that would only get you to the front page and not this particular post.
Permalinks aren’t even Permanent. They can be changed.
The Permalink for this post is https://areweconnected.com/wordpress/permalinks/
Give someone that link and it will take them right to this post. That’s a Permalink.
Well, my site has permalinks too! They look like JustinBieberRocks.com/?p=123 what’s the bid deal?
Good question. I’ve crafted that Permalink to contain 2 very important SEO keywords that I want this post to rank for; WordPress and Permalinks. Those two keywords are part of the URL to this post. Google likes that.
How did I do that? Pretty easy. Head to your Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks
Once there you can pick one of the preset Permalink structures. If you do, I’ll recommend using the Post Name.
BONUS TIP: If you use categories like I do, you can incorporate the Category and then the Post Name. To do so, use the Custom Structure and enter “/%category%/%postname%/”. That garbldy gook will pull the Category and then the Post Name and put it into your Permalink as soon as you hit publish.
BONUS BONUS TIP: Before you Publish you can edit the Permalink which is what I did here. I don’t always do that – sometimes you might if you want a shorter Permalink. I’m overiding my own Permalink rules.
BONUS BONUS BONUS TIP: Ok I promise that’s the last one. 😉 If you change your Permalink Structure anyone going to the old link will get an error. We don’t want that, and neither does Google. There are plugins that will do what is called a 301 redirect.
Ready for a killer wordpress website? Click HERE. Read the rest of the series…
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He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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