You can make your WordPress blog SEO-friendly by configuring the URL structure with permalinks.
Have a look at the following checklist of 4 things you can do.
1. Uncheck the uncategorized category
WordPress blogs, by default, are uncategorized, but blog posts should always be appropriately categorized.
You should post all your blogs in several categories. First, it is a great way to help Google, and the readers understand your blogs’ ideas. Second, it helps them navigate to related themes.
You can Add New Category for your posts from the Dashboard of the WordPress Admin user:
Go to Post -> Categories -> Add New Categories
2. Update permalinks to SEO-Friendly URLs
Generally, for WordPress blog posts, the URL looks like this –
http://www.myawesomeblog.com/?p=123
Unfortunately, it is not SEO-friendly. Seeing such URLs, the people or search engines cannot understand what topic is being discussed in your post. The keywords used in your post title, the body of your post, categories, and URL are signals to search engines and help them rank your blog posts. So, it requires you to change your permalinks to include your post titles.
You can edit the permalinks as below –
- Go to Settings -> Permalinks:
- Select the appropriate option for how you want to set the permalink for your posts.
3. Add keyword-focused titles and descriptions
You can install WP plugins like WordPress SEO - Yoast or All in One SEO Pack. All the pages or post titles will be treated as the HTML page title tag, but the meta-keywords and meta tags are not included. With WP - Plugins like Yoast, you can edit the post to include the meta keywords. Using your targeted keywords, you can create a page title and keep it brief – 50 characters or less. You can create a meta description for your site, aiming for 50-150 characters.
4. Add social buttons to your page to share
You can add social site buttons to share them with others. You can share the post through the Yoast plugin as well.
Some other permalink SEO tips
- Use simple permalinks (i.e., domain.com/archive/postname).
- Opt for dashes instead of underscores in the links.
- Remove stop words from permalinks.
- Never change permalinks after publishing, and if you do so for some reason, set up a 301 redirection from the old URL to the new URL using .htaccess.
- Use your keyword in your permalink.
