Picture this: you’ve just built a digital home, brick by digital brick, in the sprawling city of the internet. The paint is fresh, the dĂ©cor is impeccable, but what about the address? That’s where permalinks come in, acting as your unique identifier in the vast online neighborhood.

Remember the first time you tried to recall a website’s address but stumbled? The culprit might’ve been a poorly structured permalink. Now, let’s journey together through the streets of WordPress and uncover the secrets behind these digital addresses.

From their historical roots to their present-day significance in SEO, you’ll discover how the right permalink can be the difference between a visitor knocking on your door or walking right past it.

Whether you’re stepping into the digital world for the first time or you’ve been navigating it for years, this guide promises to shed new light on an often-overlooked cornerstone of website success.

A permalink, derived from the phrase ‘permanent link,’ represents the complete URL associated with content on your website. As the name suggests, it’s a link designed to remain unchanged indefinitely. Keeping your permalink straightforward ensures it’s easier for visitors to recall.

A permalink houses various parts that allow the browser to know which page to navigate and display on the user’s screen. There are 5 important parts, and let’s use:

1. The protocol

The protocol is the part of the website’s URL that tells the web browser to transfer data over the internet. The protocol is HTTP/HTTPS and is always the first part of the URL. To make it clearer, HTTP protocol while HTTPS, is the protected variant. 

2. The domain

After the protocol has been established, the domain becomes accessible and can be navigated. The port is sometimes omitted because it is an unnecessary signal of the protocol.

3. File name or post name

This URL tells both users and search engine crawlers where to go on your website. For example, if someone clicks on a product page or blog post, the URL will take them there.

4. A set of parameters

The next thing to consider is the parameters. This section can be considered a conversation between a search engine and your website. This is where the magic happens if you use robot.txt or canonical tags for your SEO.

https://www.website.com/hello/#introduction

The anchor is a shortcut that lets a user jump to a certain section of your website upon landing. You have the choice to decide on every element you put into your website, where the magic of optimizing permanent links starts.

A URL refers to any link that directs to a webpage, file, or online resource. In the context of WordPress, however, another term you might encounter is ‘permalink.’ Specifically, a permalink is a type of URL designed to provide a permanent link to a particular content piece on your WordPress website.”

There are different formats permanent links can take, and your WordPress dashboard can show you the different choices:

Is it necessary to have all these options? Well, it’s worth noting that Google considers your site’s URLs when ranking. Your URL should represent your website’s content. This matters to the Google algorithm.

Many people customize their links, which is a way to let Google crawlers know that your site is relevant and reliable. You can utilize your URLs to your advantage, and here are some tips to help you boost your SEO via your URL:

Keep a consistent structure

In choosing a URL structure, think of it like website architecture. One way to look into it is to build your site to have users get and find everything they need. The same goes with your URL structure. Additionally, if your permalink and your website have the same format, it will be easier for the search engines and viewers to navigate your website.

Use URL rich with keywords

Now, include keywords in your URLs to help your SEO boost. You must find a consistent and good keyword strategy to do this tip effectively.

The shorter, the better

Most URLs ranked number one in different queries are 59 characters long only. A short URL and a short title give you a better ranking. We highly recommend this!

A WWW or a .cOM isn’t required

While we see most websites having these, they are not as necessary as you think. A study even revealed that websites with a .com were subjected to a stiffer time ranking than other extensions. Thus, if you have the means, it’s best to use .com as your extension. 

Now, let’s move to “www.” This is all up to you if you want to use this or not; ensure consistency across your board. You have to choose the website settings option on your dashboard and finalize your preferred domain, either with or without www.

But as discussed, the shorter, the better! So, removing the “www” extension will keep your URL shorter.

Prevent from using dates in your URL

Adding dates in URLs can sharply decrease your organic traffic. Dates are never really helpful, and most SEOs agree. But if you do want a date in your URL, make sure to update your content regularly to keep the relevance and freshness.

If you’re a news site, use structured schema data if you want to provide a date of creation instead of adding it to the URL.

Examples of stop words:

  • And
  • Which
  • Before
  • At

Stop words are just wasteful since search engines do not understand them, and you can use this space for keywords instead.

Use HTTP

HTTPS is a protocol that utilizes SSL certificates to give users peace of mind when sharing classified data on a website. It’s a crucial SEO signal that’s vital to your permanent link. Recent updates have made HTTPS more important for online brands and their SEOs. 

Using HTTPS on your website reduces the red pop-ups in the URL bar that signal users about possible security issues. Since these alerts can hurt your SEO, consider using HTTPS to prevent this from happening. You can use a sophisticated system of verifications and checks to spread SSL certificates, such as Encrypt.  

While you can alter your permalinks’ structure, it can hurt your website and your SERP placements. Thus, do it right the first time!

Don’t use CMS slugs

CMS like WordPress creates a long slug for you by default. You can remove everything else and leave the keywords in. For example, here’s a full WordPress slug: 11-best-tips-for-creating-lead-magnets-that-build-your-list-fast. Once you remove unnecessary parts, you’re left with a concise “Creating lead magnets.”

What if you can’t change your URL structure?

While it’s tricky to change your URL structure without hurting your SEO, there are still some ways you can hopefully change it without losing the organic ranking.

  • Ensure that you’re 100% sure about the new structure
  • Apply the needed changes in WordPress
  • Create 301 redirects to secure old content and to ensure that all are redirected to the correct URL. 301 redirects don’t lose page rank.
  • Add your old permalink or target URL with Pretty Link and then change it to the new Pretty Links version.

Then, once the URL structure is changed, it’s time to address other SEO matters to help keep or even climb the rankings.

Thankfully, WordPress has a feature that lets you edit the permalink of your posts and pages. To do so:

  • Go to your Post or Page dashboard.
  • Hit “Quick Edit” and you can change the permalink slug:
  • Click Update.

Final thoughts

Now, we have broken down the importance of your permalinks and how they can affect your ranking and organic traffic. It won’t hurt to use these tips, and who knows? You might see some positive changes in your website’s information. Good luck!