Configuring SEO-friendly URLs in WordPress is essential for improving your site's visibility on search engines. SEO-friendly URLs are clean, descriptive, and easy for both users and search engines to understand. By default, WordPress may not generate the most optimized URLs, so manual configuration is necessary to enhance your site's SEO performance.
The key to SEO-friendly URLs is the use of permalinks, which structure the URLs to be more readable and relevant to the content. In WordPress, you can easily customize your permalink settings to reflect the structure that best suits your SEO strategy. This process involves setting up the right permalink structure and ensuring that all your posts and pages follow this format.
In addition to configuring permalinks, you can enhance the SEO-friendliness of your URLs by using plugins that offer advanced customization options. These plugins can help you optimize your URLs further by removing unnecessary words, adding keywords, and refining your URL structure.
Steps to configure SEO friendly URLs in WordPress:
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
Access your WordPress site’s backend by navigating to `yourdomain.com/wp-admin` and entering your credentials.
- Navigate to the Settings menu and select Permalinks.
Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks
- Choose a permalink structure that is SEO-friendly.
The most common SEO-friendly structure is Post name, which creates URLs based on your post titles.
/%postname%/
- Save your changes by clicking the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
Save Changes
After saving, your URLs will be updated to the new structure, improving their SEO-friendliness.
- Review your site's URLs to ensure they are concise, relevant, and include keywords.
Check that your URLs are now more descriptive and better suited for search engines.
- Test the new URLs to ensure they work correctly and redirect properly from the old URLs.
Visit several pages to verify the URLs are functioning as expected.
If necessary, set up 301 redirects to preserve SEO equity from your old URLs.
Mohd Shakir Zakaria is a cloud architect with deep roots in software development and open-source advocacy. Certified in AWS, Red Hat, VMware, ITIL, and Linux, he specializes in designing and managing robust cloud and on-premises infrastructures.
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