Are you using search engine friendly URLs to increase rankings?

In the world of blogging, there are many people who are not very SEO conscious. Not having a basic understanding of search engine optimization, they do not understand the need for search engine friendly URLs. Furthermore, if you are a WordPress blogger, there is a very easy solution to achieve search engine friendly URLs. All you have to do is, start using the WordPress post slug field to increase rankings in the search engines.

By default the WordPress post slug is assigned the blog post title, and usually includes too many unwanted stop words. These stop words have a negative effect on your search engine rankings. However, the post slug field in WordPress allows you to create a custom post slug that is SEO rich that will help you increase rankings in the search engines.

Example of the default post slug using the post title:
http://www.spunkyjones.com/wordpress/are-you-using-search-engine-friendly-URLs-to-increase-rankings

As we look at the default slug, it just doesn't cut it for a search engine friendly URL. Furthermore, there are just too many stop words and the important keywords are at the end of the URL. To get a much better search engine friendly URL, I am able to do this by creating a custom slug for my blog post within WordPress.

Example of the SEO created post slug for the search engines:
http://www.spunkyjones.com/wordpress/search-engine-friendly-urls-increase-rankings

As we look at my custom post slug, it focuses on my primary and secondary targeted keywords for the blog post. The important keywords are now closer to the start of the URL, and I have removed the stop words. Removing the unwanted stop words, make this a keyword rich URL that the search engines will rank better higher in their search engines results query pages.

Additional thoughts:
For those of you that are looking for a non-manual solution, there is a WordPress plugin that will remove the stop words for the post slug. The plugin is called the SEO Post Link that can be found at, MaxBlogPress.

Hope this blog post was helpful to you, “Are you using search engine friendly URLs to increase rankings?”

Spunky Jones.

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