Why WordPress SEO URL Structure is Essential: The Complete Guide to Rank on Top

Your URL structure can be one of the factors that might lead you to get a prominent stance on Google’s ranking. Using an SEO-friendly URL structure definitely brings a form of relevance and authenticity to your search engine category. 

Here we have carefully described all the necessary details relating to why WordPress SEO URL structure is vital, with a guide to forming a perfect URL structure. Let’s read!

The Reasons Why WordPress SEO URL Structure is Necessary

The job of Search Engine Optimization never ends. You may find it overwhelming to keep up with all the rules followed by SEO. Your URL has to be well-structured to fit into the world of ranked websites. Several factors indicate why you need SEO-friendly URL Structure. Here goes:

1. Reflects Authenticity

Having the target keyword that clearly defines what your WordPress site is offering can positively impact your visitors. Moreover, the search engines generically categorize your site. Suppose your site is providing information on cosmetics, but your URL looks like this: https://bestfishhooks.com/

It will confuse your audience and search engines which may lead your site to fail in ranking.

2. Aids in Ranking

Setting a permalink that exactly fits your service niche will help you rank without your notice. For SEO, every single kick matters. So try to give it a shot in everything. However, your SEO-friendly URL will boost your site’s performance.

3. Boosts Productivity

The best thing is SEO-friendly URL structure will make it easier for your visitors to navigate. According to research, a URL that reflects the target information enhances the site’s reliability to the users.

Read More: How to Stop URL Malware- Save Your Website with Proved Hacks

Mandatory Rules to Form an Ideal WordPress SEO URL Structure

There are no hard and fast rules for creating an URL, but we suggest you follow the instructions listed below for a suitable permalink.

a) Attach Target Keywords

Involve your target keywords in your URL, which your potential clients will search on the search bar. For example, if your site is about fish hooks, the target keyword could be “Best fish hooks for Tuna”. To make your permalink reachable, add the relevant keyword to it. However, you can create these keywords with others, and several tools and manual processes exist to find suitable keywords.

b) Use Hyphens instead of Underscores

It’s better to abide by the rules that search engines and WordPress have set. There is a common habit of using underscores in the URL, which doesn’t obey the typical structure by Google. If you research a bit on several URL links, you will find something like the image attached below:

So, use hyphens instead of underscores to make your site structure familiar to popular search engines and keep your site on the safe side.

c) Don’t Employ Dates

It’s not a good idea to keep the dates in your URL, making it outdated with time. When you are posting some information, you are still determining when it will pop up in someone’s search.

For example: https://example.com/2021/05/28/sample-post/

What if you posted something in 2001 which got revealed to your user in 2022? Go by the rules as much as possible, and don’t use dates. You can go and edit your permalink in case it contains dates. The ideal structure of an URL may look like the following: https://example.com/sample-post/.

d) URL Shouldn’t be Too Long

The ideal structure of a URL should be at most 50 words. So try to keep it short and relevant to your service. Too long URL structures may make it complicated for search engines to crawl.

e) Utilize HTTP-Secured URLs

Some URLs come with HTTP and some HTTPS. The fundamental difference between these types is that HTTPS means it is secure. You might not notice the difference initially, but it will eventually affect your site’s ranking because search engines are upfront about HTTP security.

f) Go for Categorization

If your website is enormous, it may appear boring to your users. In that case, categorize your niche, and it will be easy for your clients to find out what they are looking for.

g) Avoid Custom Structure

Using a custom structure isn’t feasible because it may reveal tags like a year or author, which may make your site outdated over a year. So try to keep the post name only and make sure it’s readable and memorable.

Is It A Good Idea To Change or Edit The URL

You can change or edit your permalink whenever you want. But there may be better ideas to do that. You won’t want your visitors to end up getting Error 404 not found because changing the URL may lead your clients to that. Again, you can lose all the linkings you have added before, which will lower your ranking. 

In this case, you may use the redirect option. There are several tools that you can use to redirect your permalink effortlessly. Not changing your permalink is recommended if you don’t have a strong reason for that.

Do Keywords in URL Help in Ranking

To some extent, it does. But it won’t give you some brownie points for including keywords in your URL because attaching the well-researched keywords is unnecessary. They may indicate that your site is organized and might allow your audience to find it easily. Otherwise, If your URL is misleading, it may undermine your site on search engines.

Also Read: Is Website Speed Depending on SEO?

FAQs

Conclusion

To make your website approachable to search engines, you should carefully work on your URLs. As we have described earlier, there are better steps to edit a permalink; hence WordPress SEO URL structure has to be precise. 

Following the instructions mentioned above, you will find your permalink for your WordPress site. Best of Luck!