Optimize Your TypePad Post URLs for Search Engines

*Note: You can now choose your URL while in compose mode. See this tutorial if you need help.

TypePad is a great platform for those who want a premium blog host without the hassle of installing updates, fixing bugs, etc.

However, TypePad truncates post page URLs during publishing, often cutting out important keywords from the titles, which may cause pages to rank lower in search engines (as opposed to blog platforms that would include the full post title in the URL).

While there is currently no option to change this, there is still something you can do to better optimize your URL for search (and it surprises me how few people do this).

When posting:

1. Choose a simple 2-3 word phrase that contains the most important keyword in your post, and also gives an idea of what it is about.
2. Type that key phrase into the title field, scroll to the bottom of the page, save as draft, and then hit the "save" button. You have just set your URL.
3. Continue to edit as usual- rename the post, finish writing if you haven't already, and publish.

For example, you may remember my post, 3 Key Factors in Developing a Strong Brand. In order to avoid an URL similar to "..2008/03/3-key-factors-i.html", which contains no keywords from my article, I titled the draft "branding" so the URL would be "..2008/03/branding.html", and then renamed the post before publishing. While I could have come up with a better key phrase, the simple "branding" does fare well in search.

Another example would be Dealing With Rude Comments, in which I titled the draft "rude comments". It's not a highly searched term, but a common one, and this article ranks fairly well in search engines for the key phrase. As a result, this happens to be one of the most popular pages through which searchers enter IGTB.

Put simply, SEO doesn't have to be complicated if you don't want it to be, no matter what blog platform you have chosen. Pay attention to the most basic details (keyword-rich content, page titles, URLs, image alt tags, meta tags) and publish quality work. It really is that easy.

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Comments

[Star]

Thanks that was very helpful and I would have never thought about it.

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