When you write a post to your blog, it has a permalink assigned to it, so that it can be found – a permanent link. This is the URL which links directly to the blog post. The unchanging nature of the link means that your blog post can be referenced by other blogs, articles and shared, at any time.

However, the way these permalinks are constructed is critical if you want your posts to be found by search engines.

Many blog posts will have a default structure which lists the URL as something like this:

     www.productsgalore.com/?p=99

and this will be your 99th blog post.

This is entirely uninteresting for search engines – and not many people want to know more about the number ’99!

So, customising your permalink is critical if you want to be found. The most useful format for most people will probably involve using the Category, and perhaps, Tag, with the post name. The category will give the search engines something relevant to use to index the post. The tag can further refine it.

If your blog is news oriented, then a date and post name based permalink might be more appropriate.

However, if your post belongs to more than one category, then it is the catetory which was created first that will be used. This is the one with the lowest Category Id no. If the post belongs to a parent and child category, then both will be displayed, parent first, then child.

To increase your SEO, have relevant keywords in your post title. This gives the search engines more to index.

If you have a long descriptive title, which will look too long and clumsy for a URL, then use a post slug. WordPress offers this means of shortening the post name to a name you want to appear in the URL. For instance, the title of this post has been shortened to ‘enhance-blog-searchability’.

For WordPress blogs, this customising can easily be done on the Settings panel, as part of the Admin functions, using variables. See the WordPress Codex for a list of the possible variables.

Once, the format is set, try not to change as you wil lose those that have linked to you and search engines are then not indexing you correctly.

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