Ask SEM Inc: URLs / Post Titles

I’m starting a new series of posts where you can submit your questions about search engine and internet marketing (which can be a variety of things). Today’s question comes from the DP forums. No one had answered this question yet, so I thought I’d use it as a start.

Hey,

I am using wordpress and I am wondering how to choose the names of the categories and posts. There is a field for the ‘name’ and a field for a ’slug’ (the slug is shown in the URL bar in the browser and the name in the menu )..

Now I would like to know what is the best way of choosing names for these two in regard of search engines.. for example :

Should I try to put keywords which I think a viewer will search for in google in the slug ? Or in the name field ? Or in both ? And which one is more important ?

Also, what about a name and a totally different slug ? Would that be bad ?

Regards,
-FOP-

I’d suggest putting both the keywords and whatever you’re going to use as the slug be the same. Keywords in the URL definitely help with optimization, but also, your keywords in the title of the blog post is going to help too. The blog post title usually is wrapped in H tags, which does carry little weight in the search engines.

If you really wanted to target the specific you were putting in the Title/URL, I’d suggest doing both, but if you wanted to target a few more broader keywords in the URL and the go specific in the title, that is an option too. You’ve got to remember though that you’re probably putting your blog posts in categories, which should be high-level keywords anyway. Example:

BlogAboutYoga.com/yoga-mats/best-yoga-mats-in-orange-county/

So keep that in consideration.

Good luck!

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