There is a lot of strategy behind choosing your URL. It needs to make sense for your website or blog. It needs to be short. It needs to be available. It is best to be a “.com” to be remembered. It should avoid the use of too many dashes “-”. It needs to be memorable.

So, with all of this, how does SEO play out? It’s a tough battle. You have to balance your consumers with the search engines… oh, and also play the game of trying to find that perfect URL. I’ve spent hours at it before. It can drive you nuts. But, despite this, do not forget SEO.

When I came across blogginghelp.com, I snapped it up. Why? Because I knew that “blogging help” was going to be a strong search phrase. And an easy site name to remember. So, here it is. I lucked out. But I also played the game well.

Over at seroundtable.com, they talk about another element. Length of URL. I try to stick below two words when choosing my actual domain name, but for SEO purposes it’s also important to remember that the URL on your blog will have a ton more attached to it in permalink format. Here’s an easy rule of thumb to help you out. The most important element is the name of the article, not it’s location in your directory.

So, make sure your permalink includes the /name-of-article and consider the /year/month/day portion optional.

This will hopefully ensure that the URL is picked up for the right reasons by the engines, and easily, but it also makes the crawling path easier for the bots. The difference it will make is minute, if anything, but it also makes for a nicer looking permalink, so it’s a good little tip.

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