Your blog post's "post slug" carries a lot of weight for ranking in search engines. In this short presentation, you learn what a post slug is, and how to create a post slug which will help you rank higher in search engine results.

1. Crash Course in WordPress Post Slugs
What you need to know, right now
Dave Doolin
Website In A Weekend
Dos Palmas
El Cerrito, CA 94530
david.doolin@gmail.com
April 15, 2011
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

2. . What is a post slug, anyway?
e term ``post slug'' comes to us from typography. Back in the day, a
slug was a line of lead type used for printing ink on to paper. Now, slug
means a way to identify a resource, such as a blog post.
In WordPress, slugs are:
Unique: no two objects can
have the same slug
Metal type slug set for
letterpress work. (Image ⃝
c
2010 Elise Blaha.)
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

3. . What is a post slug, anyway?
e term ``post slug'' comes to us from typography. Back in the day, a
slug was a line of lead type used for printing ink on to paper. Now, slug
means a way to identify a resource, such as a blog post.
In WordPress, slugs are:
Unique: no two objects can
have the same slug
Uniform: slugs are all
lower case letters
Metal type slug set for
letterpress work. (Image ⃝
c
2010 Elise Blaha.)
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

4. . What is a post slug, anyway?
e term ``post slug'' comes to us from typography. Back in the day, a
slug was a line of lead type used for printing ink on to paper. Now, slug
means a way to identify a resource, such as a blog post.
In WordPress, slugs are:
Unique: no two objects can
have the same slug
Uniform: slugs are all
lower case letters
Unpunctuated: only a dash
(-) is used for separating
Metal type slug set for words in a slug
letterpress work. (Image ⃝
c
2010 Elise Blaha.)
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

5. . What is a post slug, anyway?
e term ``post slug'' comes to us from typography. Back in the day, a
slug was a line of lead type used for printing ink on to paper. Now, slug
means a way to identify a resource, such as a blog post.
In WordPress, slugs are:
Unique: no two objects can
have the same slug
Uniform: slugs are all
lower case letters
Unpunctuated: only a dash
(-) is used for separating
Metal type slug set for words in a slug
letterpress work. (Image ⃝
c Updateable: slugs can be
2010 Elise Blaha.) changed
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

6. . Why post slugs?
When you hit the ``Publish'' button on your blog post, your blog post
gets stored into a database with a URL that allows anyone to find it
using their web browser.
.
URL critical for SEO
..
is URL is an important factor in how search engines such as Google
decide ranking order in search results.
.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

7. . Keyword rich post slugs
Keyword-rich post slugs provide outsized SEO bang-for-your-buck.
Here's what they look like:
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/9245/create-permalink
In this example, ``9245'' is the post ID.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

8. . Keyword rich post slugs
Keyword-rich post slugs provide outsized SEO bang-for-your-buck.
Here's what they look like:
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/9245/create-permalink
URL
In this example, ``9245'' is the post ID.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

9. . Keyword rich post slugs
Keyword-rich post slugs provide outsized SEO bang-for-your-buck.
Here's what they look like:
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/ 9245/create-permalink
Permalink
URL
In this example, ``9245'' is the post ID.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

10. . Keyword rich post slugs
Keyword-rich post slugs provide outsized SEO bang-for-your-buck.
Here's what they look like:
Post slug
http://website-in-a-weekend.net/ 9245/ create-permalink
Permalink
URL
In this example, ``9245'' is the post ID.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

11. . Creating great post slugs
Here's how to create great post slugs for blog posts you want to rank
well in Google search results:
...
1 Choose important keywords to accurately reflect article content.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

12. . Creating great post slugs
Here's how to create great post slugs for blog posts you want to rank
well in Google search results:
...
1 Choose important keywords to accurately reflect article content.
...
2 Make it short, 2-5 keywords. Fewer keywords give each keyword
higher relative value.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

13. . Creating great post slugs
Here's how to create great post slugs for blog posts you want to rank
well in Google search results:
...
1 Choose important keywords to accurately reflect article content.
...
2 Make it short, 2-5 keywords. Fewer keywords give each keyword
higher relative value.
...
3 Remove all stop words such as ``and,'' ``the,'' ``in,'' etc.;
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

14. . Creating great post slugs
Here's how to create great post slugs for blog posts you want to rank
well in Google search results:
...
1 Choose important keywords to accurately reflect article content.
...
2 Make it short, 2-5 keywords. Fewer keywords give each keyword
higher relative value.
...
3 Remove all stop words such as ``and,'' ``the,'' ``in,'' etc.;
...
4 Remove other words which are superfluous.
What remains is the post slug. e slug sits at the end of the URL to
form a unique permalink. You really want to get this right the first time
because adding web page redirects later is messy and boring, and may
hurt your search results.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

15. . Post slug example
Consider the blog post titled How to Add favicon.ico to WordPress For
Professional Appearance
Here's post slug WordPress gives us automatically, without any plugins
or permalink configuration:
how-to-add-faviconico-to-wordpress-for-professional-appearance
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

16. . Post slug example
Consider the blog post titled How to Add favicon.ico to WordPress For
Professional Appearance
Here's post slug WordPress gives us automatically, without any plugins
or permalink configuration:
how-to-add-faviconico-to-wordpress-for-professional-appearance
Let's take out the stop words ``how,'' ``to,'' and ``for'' which leaves us
with:
add-favicon-wordpress-professional-appearance
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

17. . Post slug example
Consider the blog post titled How to Add favicon.ico to WordPress For
Professional Appearance
Here's post slug WordPress gives us automatically, without any plugins
or permalink configuration:
how-to-add-faviconico-to-wordpress-for-professional-appearance
Let's take out the stop words ``how,'' ``to,'' and ``for'' which leaves us
with:
add-favicon-wordpress-professional-appearance
Much better. Now, since this article is pillar content on Website In A
Weekend, let's make a really short slug giving heavier weight to each
keyword in the slug:
wordpress-favicon
.
Go deeper
..
Really Fast SEO Slugs with WordPress plugin
.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

18. . ank you for your time!
is slide presentation is part of Blog Post Engineering, an electronic
course covering every aspect of writing and publishing a blog post.
Blog Post Engineering is:
Electronic: text and multimedia.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

19. . ank you for your time!
is slide presentation is part of Blog Post Engineering, an electronic
course covering every aspect of writing and publishing a blog post.
Blog Post Engineering is:
Electronic: text and multimedia.
Modular: Learn what you need
to know, at your own pace.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

20. . ank you for your time!
is slide presentation is part of Blog Post Engineering, an electronic
course covering every aspect of writing and publishing a blog post.
Blog Post Engineering is:
Electronic: text and multimedia.
Modular: Learn what you need
to know, at your own pace.
Complete: Soup to nuts, it's all
in the course.
. . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs

21. . ank you for your time!
is slide presentation is part of Blog Post Engineering, an electronic
course covering every aspect of writing and publishing a blog post.
Blog Post Engineering is:
Electronic: text and multimedia.
Modular: Learn what you need
to know, at your own pace.
Complete: Soup to nuts, it's all
in the course. Dave Doolin has had a long
Current: Updated 2 times per time interest in web
year. publishing and electronic
document construction.
For more information, visit Blog Post Engineering. You may also enjoy
Website In A Weekend, where you will find answers to the rest of your
blogging and WordPress questions. . . . . . .
D. Dool.in WordPress Post Slugs