This post brought to you by Ana Hoffman
Ana is the founder of Traffic Generation Cafe and wants you to know that her free 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination report = SEO Made Simple. Don't forget to pick up your own copy!
Ana has written 187 great posts for Traffic Generation Cafe.
Comment posted on Slugging It out: Why URL Is Important On-Site SEO Factor by Sean
Hey Susanna!
You are very welcome! 
As for the tips for keeps, I have more where that came from - haha! Happy slugging Susanna!
Sean also commented
- Thanks DiTesco
SEO Slugs is a plugin that I also use for all my blogs. It’s a very handy tool in weeding out unnecessary stop words from the URL Slug
- Hey Mitch!
It depends on your title. If you want to target a vertical keyword that is related to your title (but apparently you can’t put it in your title anymore) then you can put it in the slug
That’s what I sometimes do.
It gives me a + space on a keyword that I want the search engines to notice. - Hey Mitch!
Perhaps you can better clarify your additional question to me? So I can better understand it?
Thanks
- Hey Sheila!
Thanks! Looking forward to hearing from you there!
- Hey Dan!
Glad you agree with us on this! Will try to check your plugin for wordpress. Keyword winner is it? I wish you all the best for your launch buddy!
Recent comments by Sean
- Best Internet Marketing Tools Best Marketers Use
Hey Ana!Checked out your list of tools. I really love the fact that you’re so good with what tools to use based on your experience and knowledge and that you’re sharing it with the world! Makes it a heck lot easier for us. I’m really impressed on how you boosted your traffic from nothing to a very impressive Alexa rank of 17,999 (as of Jan 13, 2011)
Great work! I’m so proud to know you - How Twitter Traffic Generation Became My Largest Source of Referral Traffic: Lessons to Share
Another excellent entry Ana. You really know how to make the most out of Twitter! And I’m so glad to let you mentor me on that area. Will keep on praying for you! - Need For Site Speed: Why I Wish I Had This Fruit Stand Owner’s Problems
Yep it’s definitely just icing on the cakeI plan to get more involved here in your blog - especially since I’m planning to guest post here every once in a while (once a week would be ideal)
Cooking up another one tonight for ‘ya
Thanks Ana!
- Need For Site Speed: Why I Wish I Had This Fruit Stand Owner’s Problems
Great share Ana! Yep site speed matters now - not a whole lot, but it’d be neat for both your readers and search engines if your site loads as fast as it possibly can.
powered by SEO Super Comments
More Great Posts on the Topic:
- 10 SEO Tips That Will Turn You Into a Rocket Scientist
- SEO Copywriting Made Simple - REALLY
- Your Ultimate Anchor Text Tutorial - from Basic to Advanced
- Blog Audit Friday: Let’s All Be Friends
- SEO Content Writing: How to Write a Title Pleaser That Ranks Well Too
Traffic Generation Cafe happily runs on Thesis Theme
What do I love about Thesis? Everything would be the short answer.
If that doesn't work for you, then the fact that Thesis Theme framework is designed to serve is the rock-solid foundation for any website. My Traffic Generation Cafe and I fully trust and rely on the airtight SEO, incredible design flexibility, and lightning-fast loading times that Thesis provides.
Still not sure about Thesis? See what you can do with it, then decide.
- Thesis Gallery - Lots of well designed blogs powered by Thesis
- Thesis Awesome - AMAZING customization packages for Thesis
- Thesis User Guide - see how much incredible support you get
I am a wife to a great husband of 13 years (here ya go, now I have to make changes to this sentence once a year), a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
{ 75 comments }
SEO Slugs is a great plugin for Title Slug Optimization! I use it on my website.
Sunil Sheoran invites you to read: How to Set Up RSS Feed in WordPress
Aloha Ana, gosh I appreciate the clarification, I always wondered how slugs work. Thank God for women who don’t mind opening a can of jelly beans and making it all sweet for those of us, who find it sluggish to get started. Glad I came by and thanks for sharing! Mahalo, Lani
PS.. do me a favor, keep it going for those of us, who still need our hands held.:)
Lani Kee invites you to read: Implementing Facebook Comment Plugin to WordPress
Hi Sean Si,
I just learned few days back the term about “Slug” when I joined this new job. Most of the sites are on wordpress. I am also wanna to some more info about SLUG this post is helps me. Thanks for the Plugin also. And yes it is one of the important factors of on-page. Search Engine gives importance to it.
Great advice Sean and indeed a very important on-site SEO technique. In my case, I sometimes forget about this so I have this handy plugin called “SEO Slugs” and it works pretty well, or at the very least it removes all those less important “stop words”. Anyway, and as I said, great advice for the proper use of “slugs” or URLs.. Thumbs up
DiTesco invites you to read: The Best SEO Tips And Practices For 2011
Thanks DiTesco
SEO Slugs is a plugin that I also use for all my blogs. It’s a very handy tool in weeding out unnecessary stop words from the URL Slug
Sean invites you to read: PageRank Sculpting
Thanks Sean,
I now have a better understanding of my permalinks and have put this information into use.
Thanks Anna, Sean’s site is a great resource. I will be spending some time there, no doubt.
Sheila Atwood@newbielifeline.com invites you to read: How to Get Better Visibility on Google
Hey Sheila!
Thanks! Looking forward to hearing from you there!
Sean invites you to read: Effective Link building strategies
I couldn’t agree more with your post - that the url (permalink) along with the meta title of a post and the keywords in a headline are the real power in getting search engine traffic! The rest of the content in the blog post is relally the icing on the cake.
All the top bloggers are raving about a new Wordpress plugin which I just launched - Keyword Winner, it can help them do just that and what’s more it is all built into the Wordpress dashboard, as you post it suggests keywords based on competition, Google trends and monthly search volume using Google Insights. I highly recommend everyone uses it!
Dan Lew invites you to read: How To Make Money With Keyword Winner
Hey Dan!
Glad you agree with us on this! Will try to check your plugin for wordpress. Keyword winner is it? I wish you all the best for your launch buddy!
Sean invites you to read: Why your Copywritten Article isn’t Working
Hey Sean!
Awesome and clear post.
I noticed my old post (where i was really completeny a newbie on SEO), i had terrible URL slugs lol..
I am trying to apply it, although i always forgot to exclue the short words, like a, for, etc.
Will definitely look into it more.
Thanks for this awesome reminder.
Kimi invites you to read: How Much Does WordPress Cost
You’re welcome Kimi!
It’s never too late to change the slugs of your older posts
but then you can also leave those behind and just focus on the new ones - either way, at least now you know how valuable this on-site factor is.
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Sean,
If i change them, i guess i would loose some backlinks i have built to the post? and i have to wait for Google to reindex them again?
If yes, i guess i would leave them as it is. I have already tons redirect in my .htaccess =(
Thank you for the suggestion.
Kimi invites you to read: How To Get Facebook API Key
Hey Kimi!
Not necessarily… I think Wordpress automatically redirects the old URL to the new one so you won’t be losing anything
try it - try changing one of your old URLs to a new one and then type in the old URL in your browser - see what happens 
But if you’re not using Wordpress - then I’m not so sure.
My pleasure Kimi!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Sean,
Whew! One other reason to try to read through all the comments. I’m glad Kimi brought up the question I wanted to ask you.
Like Kimi, my oldest content has awful slugs. I started fixing them but then stopped, unsure of the impact it would have. Then I didn’t bother because, hello? that fluff is over four years old and probably needs to stay hidden. LOL
Anyway, going forward, I’ll try to be more diligent. But here is one additional question: since nobody sees the post until they click, couldn’t we save time by making slug-worthy post titles? It’s not always possible, but what are your thoughts on that?
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen invites you to read: Invest in the Best Make Money Blogs
Hey Mitch!
Perhaps you can better clarify your additional question to me? So I can better understand it?
Thanks
Hi Sean,
Let’s say I do a Google search on “Kinds of Keywords”. The results are as you have shown in the post. The slug appears to be “kinds-keywords-customer-defining-keywords”. That’s not a good title, of course.
However, suppose I do a Google search on “Colombian Coffee”. If you had a post that you initially titled Colombian Coffee, the default slug would be colombian-coffee. Therefore, you wouldn’t have to change it.
So, my question is, is this worth striving for, or is it an unnecessary process?
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen invites you to read: Invest in the Best Make Money Blogs
Hey Mitch!
It depends on your title. If you want to target a vertical keyword that is related to your title (but apparently you can’t put it in your title anymore) then you can put it in the slug
That’s what I sometimes do.
It gives me a + space on a keyword that I want the search engines to notice.
Sean invites you to read: Keys to Using Effective Testimonials
Thanks, Sean. I will attend to this
Cheers,
Mitch
Mitchell Allen invites you to read: Invest in the Best Make Money Blogs
Hi Sean, I will second that, you did well with this post explaining, well done!
Dan Lew invites you to read: How To Make Money With Keyword Winner
Thank you for this post, I am going to start using this, I had wondered how to change the slugs because I haven’t ever been happy with the slugs being “archives” followed by a number.
Thank you!
Stacy
Stacy@Grow With Stacy invites you to read: How to Become More Productive Part One
You are very welcome Stacy!
I’m sure you’ll be surprised with the results of your new knowledge about slugs if you do apply it in your site. You can change it in your wordpress settings ->permalinks
Take away everything and just leave /%postname%/ as a custom structure slugs
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Sean, thank you for taking the time to explain that to me! It wasn’t working for me for some reason (maybe my free theme?) so I may have to manually type in my post titles for a while.
Stacy
Stacy@Grow With Stacy invites you to read: How to Become More Productive- Part Two
Hey Stacy!
Oh gosh! Really? No, even with a free theme it SHOULD work for you. But just in case, you should try it on perhaps the default theme and see if it works. After you’ve given time to troubleshoot it by trial and error, and if the problem REALLY IS THE THEME - then go change to Thesis theme (or Copyblogger’s Genesis theme for that matter) I highly recommend those for on-site SEO coding structure.
Sean invites you to read: Why people miss God-given opportunities
Hey Ana, thanks for sharing this great post of Sean’s!
Nice Sean, this post was easy to read, understand and start implementing right away.
Loved the “tips for keeps”.
Thanks again!
Susanna
Susanna Hess invites you to read: Do Your Facebook Friends Want To Boot You When To Use Facebooks Remove Friend Option
Hey Susanna!
You are very welcome!
As for the tips for keeps, I have more where that came from - haha! Happy slugging Susanna!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hey Ana & Sean,
Thanks for sharing this. I have been using this plugin for a while now and it’s great
All the best,
Mavis Nong
Mavis Nong @ Attraction Marketing Online invites you to read: Making Money Online How Fast Can You Make It
Hey Navis!
You are veeeeeeeeeeery welcome!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
A simple yet powerful post! I do mind my slugs because of all the reasons stated above. I just wish that those not taking advantage of it would take the chance to read this post so they’ll know how much they’re missing out on.
Hey Andrew!
That’s great! Glad you’re mindful of your slugs. We have to share the info to people who don’t know how powerful their URL slugs are to both search engines and to people. I’ve visited your blog and I believe you’re one of the authorities when it comes to giving people blogging and SEO advice
help me share the slug importance!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Sean
You are making me blush!
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide invites you to read: Blog Statistics: Pro Blog Stats WordPress Plugin
Hahaha!
Just like to be very truthful and generous in commending people
and you definitely deserve it Andrew! Keep up the great work!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Sean and Ana,
Really useful information and clearly and well presented. I have been using the SEO Slugs plug in for a while and it does an excellent job.
~Marcus
Marcus Baker@network marketing Internet business invites you to read: Im Giving it all up
Hey Marcus!
Thank you! Glad you’re having fun with the easy-to-use plugin! Keep on optimizing your slugs buddy!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Very important lessons on the URL slugs. I knew it was important, and knew I should be doing it, but I haven’t been. This has really given me a reason to take a round-turn on what I have been doing and try to do it right from here on out where it come to slugs.
Thanks for a great guest post Sean
Steve@Lifestyle Design invites you to read: How to Create a Personal Development Plan
Hey Steve!
You are very welcome! I’m glad this made you think about optimizing your slugs from here on. I look forward to the changes in result of your slugging efforts!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Ana and Sean,
I have been using this plugin for a while, it works really well. If I wanted to change some slugs, what would happen to the links that are already out there on the internet, including shortened links, for example bit.ly links ?
Thanks for sharing your insights.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend invites you to read: Outsourcing For Network Marketers – A Foundation
Hey Oliver!
If you change the URLs of your published articles what will happen is that Wordpress will keep the old URL and it will set the old one to redirect and point to the new one. So you don’t have to worry about your shortened links and the ones already out
(that is, if you’re using Wordpress)
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Sean,
wow, that’s cool. Thanks again for your advice.
Take care
Oliver
Oliver Tausend invites you to read: Outsourcing For Network Marketers – A Foundation
Hey Oliver!
My pleasure buddy! Anytime
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
I like my creative titles better than the “20 best tricks” type of slug, but I did do this on my last blog post and it got a whole lot more traffic and retweets. Go figure!
Nice job, Sean!
Amy Spreeman invites you to read: Four Rules for Starting Your Business Blog
Thanks Amy!
Congratulations! That’s great news! So I’m sure you’re all set on doing it for all other succeeding entries you’re going to have
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hey Sean
I have been slugging for quite awhile using the WordPress plugin and it generally works okay.
But I do try to take a look and may modify it if the url does not make sense.
So much to do so little time
Peter
Peter Fuller MBA invites you to read: Long Term Unemployed on 60 Minutes - Are you feeling desperate
Hey Peter!
That’s great! Keep on doing what you’re doing and I’m sure you’ll find yourself cruising on search engine traffic in no time
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
The good news is that readable urls are not only useful for SEO purposes but also easier to read and remember for users than page urls including a long string of all kinds of random characters.
Yup! Very true Andreas
Thank you for pointing that out
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Good tips, Sean - this is something that I never bothered with, for years! It definitely pays to spend an extra minute, or two, on optimizing the URL of your post. I like the rule “titles are for humans, URLs are for search engines”
Hey Roy!
Soooooo glad that this entry was an eye-opener to you! And yes it definitely pays spending a MINUTE or TWO (which, is what compared to the results??). Know where to draw the line - all in all, URLs should be for humans too
it’s just a matter of balance I guess
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
I enjoy looking at my tracking statistics and seeing how many different ways people find my blog posts. This is due to using the exact information you provided in this post. This works and helps SEO efforts more than you can imagine.
Rob Franta@Success Coach and Mentor invites you to read: How to Get Unlimited High PR One-Way Back Links
Thanks Rob!
Glad that your experience verifies my guest post here
share it with the world buddy!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hey Sean!
Great post on snails… I mean slugs
I really agree with you. Slugs are a very important part of SEO. Too many times I see people not taking advantage of slugs by using the post id slug (.com/?p=123).
Oh dear! I’ve not been taking away the stop words in my slugs! Thanks for the heads up Sean!
Cheers!
Gloson
Gloson invites you to read: It’s Not Really What You Say- but How You Say It
Hey Gloson!
Hahaha! Yep yep - it’s sad to see ugly slugs. Search engines don’t like it, people don’t like it. And for what? In exchange for a minute or two of fixing it?
Better get to work on those stop words Gloson. You don’t want me telling you that it’s the reason why your competitor’s ahead of you by one rank! (That’ll suck - a lot)
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Thanks for this “heads up” Sean & Ana. I have been aware of the importance of this in SEO, but you know how it is, sometimes you forget to check that all is still working properly.
I’ll be focusing more on “taking note” of my blog’s slugs in the future.
Stay inspired!
Michael
Michael B Wilbraham@Network Marketing Insights invites you to read: Are You Driving Your Network Marketing Business With The Right Attitude
Hey Michael!
It is our pleasure! Yeah we often forget the little details of SEO. We just have to be careful which ones - coz some are vital
Glad it lit a bulb on your head Michael!
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Another tip I learned from the gurus about the SEO slug is remove the date, category, etc out from your slug and make it short and sweet. They say that it’s more easy for readers to remember and link to your content. Short slug also have an advantage of be shown full in the SERP. What do you think about it, Sean?
Mike invites you to read: Why Guest Blogging Used To A Very Bad Idea For Me
Hey Mike!
Yes I definitely think that the shorter your URL slug is, the better. Remember that search engines love things organized, shorter, more concise and straight to the point. If your URL slug is laser focused on your keywords and content, you can be sure that you’ll be ranking higher than the one with a longer URL with dates and categories.
glad you mentioned that one Mike
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hello Sean,
Thanks for the great tip about “slugs”. I often see people still using the default WordPress permalink structure of ?postid=XXX, and I shake my head and think about how much they’re missing out.
I’ll check out the plugin in too. So thanks for that tip as well.
Take care,
Wayne
Wayne Wu @ The Profitable Networker invites you to read: How to Tell People About Your Business in One Sentence
Hey Wayne!
Yep yep they surely are missing out - a whole lot! That’s exactly why I wrote this article. You’re very welcome! Do download it soonest! It’s a really easy-to-use plugin
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
I’m not sure about the other WordPress themes, but I use Thesis and Headway which give me the ability to have an URL that is different from my Title, both being different from the Title Bar.
I often use one Title for people reading the page and a separate Title for people reading the SERP. The URL can be keyword only, strictly for the algorithm.
By the time I’m done I have no idea what I actually said anymore
Rick
Rick LaPoint @ Internet Marketing invites you to read: The Only Business Model that Works
Hey Rick!
That’s a good strategy! I also separate my from my post title. Although for the URL, I make it relevant to my coz it has to be consistent with the search result snippet that people will see in the SERPs.
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Ana!
Wonderful post and great reminder. I didn’t know about the seo slugs plugin, I’ll have to check that out. I know my slugs are probably a bit cluttered! I’ll add them to my blogging checklist!
Thank you for the awesome tip.
Heather
Heather C Stephens invites you to read: Dadpreneur and Mompreneur Routines to Keep the Overwhelm Ogre at Bay
Hey Heather!
It’s never too late to start optimizing your slugs now
Try the seo slugs plugin - you’ve nothing to lose. Promise. 
Sean invites you to read: Facebook Connect Comments for Wordpress
Awesome, thanks for the tips!
Quick question: Is there a point where slugs become too long? Is there a character limit that you don’t want to exceed?
Tristan invites you to read: Successful bloggers always quit Wait… what
Hey Tristan!
You are very welcome! Hmm I don’t think that there will be a point where slugs will become too long
1. Coz you remove the stop words
2. Coz your keywords should be focused and concise
3. Usually your slugs are your title
My advice: Don’t pack in too much keywords on your slugs so as for it not to look too long
Sean invites you to read: Facebook Connect Comments for Wordpress
Hi Sean,
That was a good read! Thanks for sharing! I recently discovered that having the right URLs on your articles plays an important role when it comes to search engine rankings. Considering that I’m on the blogspot platform, modifying those is a tricky task and there are some limitations. Still a good level of optimization is possible. After performing it, I actually saw a good boost in traffic throughout the next few days.
Daniel Sharkov@Blogging Tips invites you to read: Blogging Just for Money or Is There Something More
Hey Daniel!
That’s great! Glad you now have a frist-hand experience on the importance of optimizing your slugs. It’s tiny little details on your on-site optimization that make a huge difference at times. On site optimization is highly neglected and overshadowed by linkbuilding and off-site optimization nowadays…
Sean invites you to read: Facebook Connect Comments for Wordpress
Got it. Slugs, not snails.
I’m impressed you managed to avoid the subheader “Pull Out All the Stops” when you discuss stop words. I wouldn’t have been able to resist the pun!
Hey Andy!
Glad you got that all figured out haha!
Sean invites you to read: Facebook Connect Comments for Wordpress
Great post Sean,
I think this is too often overlooked, especially in the age of CMS platofrms that do it all for you.
I have always preached the importance of optimizing your permalinks for the right phrases. THis way you can write a clever title for the people (commentluv) but Google sees a VERY optimized title instead.
Nicely constructed post too I might add Sean
Alex@keyword optimization services invites you to read: Keyword Winner or Keyword Loser A WordPress Plugin Review
Hey Alex!
Thanks! Thank you for your very kind words. And yes, these little details are often overlooked because people on the web just don’t have the time to fix every minute information on their website. Some people don’t realize that it’s tiny details like these that pump up your on site optimization.
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hi Sean,
Nice Post. Very useful stuff.
I’m using seo slugs on one of my blogs and it’s really awesome.
Thanks for sharing this awesome post Sean!
Devesh invites you to read: Automatically Notify Your Members on New Posts
Hey Devesh!
You’re very welcome!
Glad it’s working well for you
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Hey Sean & Ana,
Nice post - It’s good to see a clear explanation of slugs and their importance. It amazes me to see so many URL’s with extra ‘and’s’ and ‘it’s’ in them…
A lazy way to deal with slugs, at least for wordpress users is Joost’s ‘SEO Slugs’ Plugin which will automatically take out the small words from your title…
Thanks Sean for the post, and Ana for the host =)
Jym invites you to read: An Infinite Flow Of Network Marketing Leads
Hey Jym!
You are very welcome! Make sure to apply what you’ve learned here with your slugs! I usually just don’t leave it to my SEO slugs plugin - there are times that I really do edit my slugs just to make it look more attractive and user-friendly without taking away keyword presence.
Sean invites you to read: Facebook Connect Comments for Wordpress
Cheers Sean =)
I already am and it’s true, it’s worth taking a bit more time to tailor the URL by hand. SEO Slugs will help but the tips you’ve presented here certainly provide the best option…
As an example, the slug for my post mentioned in the ComLuv along with this comment is .com/network-marketing-leads/ - the other words are superfluous.
Thanks again!
Jym invites you to read: An Infinite Flow Of Network Marketing Leads
Yep yep!
It’s a win-win for you when you change the URL slugs, right?
You win in the search engines
You win with attracting people coz they see the relevance
For just a little more effort of changing it
Sean invites you to read: How to set your standards in life
Comments on this entry are closed.
{ 3 trackbacks }