I got an email today from a lawyer who said check out my article at : http://blog.firmname.com/index.php/estate-planning-2/7-major-errors-in-estate-planning/#more-147.  Have you ever gotten an message with a link that is mostly numbers such as www.firmname.com/blog/12/5/030455020110304440500060.phx?  I am sure you get lots of email messages that have URLS with a long string of text or numbers and/or text that doesn’t make much sense.  I call these URLs “gross URLS” or for WordPress users “gross permalinks.”

Do yourself and your readers a favor and do not create pages or posts on your website that have gross URLS for four reasons:

  1. They look bad.
  2. They often get broken by email programs and don’t work when clicked.
  3. They are hard for people to type into a browser.
  4. They probably do not help your search engine optimization.

The last point may be the most important because you want your URL to contain key words that may help increase the page or post’s search engine ranking.  Think about the most important key words in your post and use them in the URL / permalink.  If you are writing an article about Arizona widget law which of the following URLS is better:

  • www.firmname.com/blog/12/5/030455020110304440500060.phx
  • www.firmname/arizona-widget-law

Related posts:

  1. 12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post Every Time
  2. A Fool-Proof Formula for Easily Creating Compelling Content
  3. How to Shorten Long URLs
  4. Leveraging Your Blog to Bring in More Work