The importance of SEO-friendly URLs on your WordPress site

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The importance of SEO-friendly URLs on your WordPress site

One of the key elements to improving your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) is to have SEO-friendly URLs. URLs are the unique addresses for each page on your website, and they play an important role in helping search engines understand the content of your site. In this article, we’ll explore why having SEO-friendly URLs is important, and how you can optimize your WordPress site’s URLs for better SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This is the way that your website becomes visible for search engines and helps them understand your content.

Having your content be visible to SEO is very important for your site to be showed when people look up something related to you and your site.

One of the ways you can make your site more visible to search engines are through your URL.

What is SEO Friendly URLs?

A SEO friendly URL simply means having a URL that are easily readable and understandable to both humans and search engines.

This means that they typically are short, descriptive and include relevant keywords that describe the content on your site.

An example of this could be if you decide to write a blog post about ‘how to make pizza’, then a SEO friendly URL would look like:

https://www.yourdomain.com/how-to-make-pizza

Some of the things that make this URL very good is that it is short and not to complicated in the things that are included. It is simply your domain and then the title of the blog post. No unnecessary information is included. It is also descriptive as it explains the thing that is included in what is on the site. It also includes keywords like ‘make’ and ‘pizza’ which will clearly describe what is happening in your blog post.

This URL is easily understood by humans as well and can be remembered or shared easily.

Why are SEO Friendly URLs important?

There are lots of reasons to use SEO friendly URLS as it can benefit your website in several ways. Some of them include:

Improved user experience: SEO-friendly URLs are easy to read and understand, which can improve the user experience of your website. Users are more likely to click on a link with an SEO-friendly URL than a long, confusing one. It makes it easy for users to understand and then choose.
Improved search engine ranking: Search engines use URLs to understand the content of a page. By using relevant keywords in your URLs, you can improve your search engine ranking and make it easier for users to find your site. Keeping it short and simple is also a great way to not have your content end up places where people can’t use it or won’t interact with it.
Increased click-through rates: URLs that are easy to read and understand can lead to increased click-through rates, as users are more likely to click on a link that is relevant to their search query.

How to Optimize Your WordPress Site’s URLs for Better SEO

Optimizing your URLs can be a quick and easy fix that should become second nature to you as you keep creating content and work on your site. There are a few ways to get this done.

Using short and descriptive URL: Keeping your URLs short and to the point will help both humans and search engines easily understand your content. This will create a more accurate use of your content.
Avoid using special characters: Avoiding the use of special characters such as ‘%’, ‘&’, or ‘?’ will also greatly affect your SEO ranking as these can make your URLs difficult to read and understand for search engines. Many computers and search engines assign specific meanings to a lot of special characters so it might end up confusing them more than they would help.
Separate words using hyphens: Use hyphens to separate words in your URLs. This makes them easier to read and understand and can improve your search engine ranking. It will also make it more likely for users to choose your content as it is easier for them to understand.
Use a plugin to optimize your URLs: There are several WordPress plugins available that can help you optimize your URLs for better SEO. Some popular options include Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and SEO Ultimate. This is probably the easiest solution especially if you don’t feel like you fully understand how SEO works. Using a plugin can mostly let someone else do all of the research for you and handle the changes to it as they inevitably come.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having SEO friendly URLs is an important part of optimizing your WordPress site for search engines. By using short, descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords, you can improve your search engine ranking, increase click-through rates, and improve the overall user experience of your website.

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