Blog Post Titles & URLs
(Not just for bloggers, applies to static sites too)
Normally, when I write a title for a blog post, I’ll do the typical things:
1. Make sure my keyword is the first word of the title.
2. Make sure the rest of the title is the right size for the title of a search result, and that it is something enticing and highly relevant to the searcher of that keyword.
Next is where it gets interesting…
You might know how in WordPress when you’re writing a post title, there is a field below the title where the URL of the post pops up, based on what you write in the post field.
Here’s An Example
So when you make your post title, say:
“Sit Stay Fetch: The Best Dog Training Guide?”
The URL appears as:
http://yourblog.com/sit-stay-fetch-the-best-dog-training-guide
Up until more recent versions of WordPress, if you had your permalink structure set as:
%postname%
Then that post URL was what you were stuck with by default.
But now, WP has a button next to the post URL field (this is when you’re writing your post still) called “edit” where you can actually CHANGE that URL of your post to anything you want.
Stupidly, I didn’t bother to use this function for a long time, stuck in my old ways of just letting the post URL be the post title and being content with that.
What we started testing is making what comes after the end of your domain in the post’s URL… JUST the keyword you’re targeting… nothing else.
So To Perform This:
When your post is titled:
“Sit Stay Fetch: The Best Dog Training Guide?”
You edit your post URL to make it:
http://yourblog.com/sit-stay-fetch
Where Sit Stay fetch is the keyword you’re trying to target.
Results?
So far, doing the same thing with two posts but only making the post URL different… the version with JUST the keyword is seeming to perform better… and by far!
And it makes sense:
When Google is trying to determine what your page is about, it’s easier for them when there is less keywords in your post’s URL, isn’t it?
Not only that, but I have a suspicion that we’ll find the Click Through rate from searchers of that term to be higher when they see a URL that isn’t truncated (when Google cuts off your URL because it’s too long) and ONLY contains the keyword they searched for.
So this could actually be a double whammy traffic boost if you implement it thoroughly.
Give it a shot on your blog posts (or page titles on static sites) if you don’t already and see if you notice the difference!
Hope ya found this helpful.
I suspect you will. Please share your views on this below in the comment area. My thanks to Andrew for this great idea.
chipbennett
