Do you want to rank on the first page of Google?
Well, who wouldn’t?
If you have recently launched your website, ranking on search may take time. But, some changes could push you ahead of the line, affect your SEO positively, and result in you ranking higher and higher.
One such effort is improving the permalink SEO. Most people underestimate the role permalinks play in your website ranking.
This article will show you why:
- Adding keywords to your permalinks boosts SEO ranking
- Shortening your URLs is vital for SEO
- You need to add an SSL certificate to your website
Neil Patel, Brian Dean, and other industry experts have seconded these permalink SEO tips. What’s better, I have followed Google’s guidance on this topic.
How Permalinks Affect SEO and What to Do About It?
Permalinks affect SEO because Google bots use your website’s permalinks to determine the content of a page.
So, how can you use the permalink to signal relevance and rank higher?
Quick Tip 1 – Create Keyword-Rich Permalinks
Using keyword-rich permalinks signals page content to bots to boost your SEO.
When Google bots come crawling your website, the permalink is what they index first. Including the keyword within it will help the bots understand the theme of the page or article.
Keywords are the ideas that define the content of your website. Search engines use these keywords to identify what your content is about and match it with user queries.
Google insiders have said numerous times that using keywords in URLs influences SEO but not by a wide margin. They advise making permalinks for the users.
When John Muller, a Google Webmaster Trends analyst, was asked whether the Google search engine groups keyphrases, he said:
“Keywords in URLs are overrated for Google SEO. Make URLs for users. Also, on mobile, you usually don’t even see them.”
Source: Tweet
This statement doesn’t mean it’s not a ranking factor at all. Instead, he advises that it should be the least of your worries.
Again in a similar hangout discussion in 2016, he said:
“I believe that’s a really small ranking factor, so it’s not something I’d really try to force. And it’s not something where I’d say it’s even worth your effort to kind of restructure a site just so you can include keywords in the URL.”
Source: YouTube Hangout
Certainly, you shouldn’t restructure your entire website just to fit some keywords in the permalink. It’s just not worth it!
However, an experiment on the impacts of keywords on permalinks by Search Laboratory may convince you to include keywords in your permalinks going forward.
According to the research findings, the highest-ranking page for a particular keyword had it (keyword) in the permalink.
So permalinks do help and considering they don’t need much attention to optimize, it’s worth it. But how do you make the URL keyword rich?
Here is an example:
Assuming that you’ve just completed an article whose primary focus keyword is “content marketing strategies”, here is how your permalink should look:
example.com/blog/content-marketing-strategies/
Let’s break down the permalink;
- Example.com – domain name,
- Blog – slug name for the blog post page
- Content-marketing strategies – the slug name for your post.
Before we wrap up the importance of keyword-rich permalinks, let’s sample an actual permalink for an article ranking top 3 on Google for the search term “content marketing strategy.”
Semrush has included the keyword in the permalink. It’s not by mistake but by design.
Another way to add the keyword in your permalink is by buying a domain name that’s keyword-rich. It will position your websites professionally in a specific sphere.
For example, if you aim to specialize in baking cakes within New York, newyorkcakes.com would be a perfect keyword-rich domain name.
Here is an example of a keyword-rich permalink:
Changing a website domain just because of the keyword may not be worthwhile. However, changing the slug name, so the permalink is keyword-rich may visibly boost SEO.
Quick Tip 2 – Use Shorter Permalinks
Google has never confirmed that the length of your permalink affects SEO. So why would I even care to include length in this article?
Well, the structure and complexity of the URLs may affect their user-friendliness, affecting your rankings.
Remember John Muller insisted that we should “make URLs for the user”? That’s why we should keep them short, sensible, and memorable.
People remember short URLs.
However, short doesn’t mean one-word permalinks. Keep the slug name explanatory and consistent with the H1 heading. By so doing, you will provide some information to the search engine on what to expect in the article.
Google advises you to avoid lengthy, generic URLs.
But instead, choose simple URLs that convey content information.
But how short should the permalink be? How short is short?
When Matt Cutt, Webmaster Analyst, was asked,
“what is excessive in the length of a keyword-rich URL?”
His response was:
“If you can make your title four- or five-words long – it is pretty natural. If you have got a three, four or five words in your URL, that can be perfectly normal.
As it gets a little longer, then it starts to look a little worse. Now, our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”
Source: Google Webmaster Threads
Matt Cutts advises you keep the URL between three to five words, about 50 to 60 characters.
Other experts who recommend shortening the permalinks to a similar range include Neil Patel and Brian Dean of Backlinko.
In a video, Neil Patel explains how using a short URL helps you rank higher. He states that using fewer than eight words in the title and URL increases the page ranking.
On the other hand, Brian Dean reports that the average URL length for the top 10 results is 66 characters.
He further states that, on average, the first result had 9.2 characters less than the tenth result. Brian’s findings are based on over 11.8 million URLs.
So how do you shorten the URL?
If your website runs on WordPress CMS, you can shorten the permalink by editing the post’s slug name. Remove fluff in your post name and add your focus keyword.
Quick Tip 3-Use HTTPS, not HTTP
Your website permalink should use HTTPS and not HTTP for higher ranking on search engines. So how is the ‘S’ important, you ask?
The ‘S’ represents an SSL certificate and shows your site is secure. The SSL protocol has been around since 2014 but has been overly glorified recently.
In 2017, Google started marking unencrypted websites(HTTP) as unsafe. The alert warns users if they land on an insecure website.
Alt: Google sample of an insecure website
People are very sensitive about their data, so they will opt to bounce. The higher bounce rate may hurt your SEO efforts by showing Google that your content is irrelevant.
In addition, HTTPS is a ranking signal, one of the few confirmed. Google described it as
“…a very lightweight signal—affecting fewer than 1% of global queries, and carrying less weight than other signals such as high-quality content —while we give webmasters time to switch to HTTPS. But over time, we may decide to strengthen it, because we’d like to encourage all website owners to switch from HTTP to HTTPS to keep everyone safe on the web.”
Considering the statement was released back in 2014, the Google team has possibly strengthened it. Therefore, having an HTTP URL will, without a doubt, hurt your SEO.
But how can you ensure that your URL is HTTPS rather than HTTP?
Instead of fighting this losing battle, you can install a free, automated, and open SSL certificate by downloading it from let’s encrypt.
On the other hand, WordPress CMS users can get a free SSL certificate from their hosting companies or use custom plugins.
Using HTTPS instead of HTTP on your website is one of the best permalink SEO hacks. It creates trust and credibility and increases the on-site time. In return builds a good reputation for your site.
Conclusion
The fact that permalink SEO is not a top-ranking factor does not mean it is unimportant. The structure of your permalinks is a good place to start in your SEO ranking efforts.
You boost your ranking chances by including a keyword in the permalink, using shorter URLs, and using HTTPS instead of HTTP.
There are more hacks you need to master to boost your odds of ranking on the first page of Google. Most of which I share in my weekly newsletter; consider signing up today here.