Changing URL for SEO

[Veevlimike]

Hi folks,

I'm a total newbie so please go easy.

I've published 4 blogs on my website and am using the free Yoast plugin to guide me on my SEO. The blogs have been promoted in various places using organic and paid social.

However, the more I look into SEO the more I'm realising that I did literally NO keyword research and the keywords I'm using are pretty useless.

The question is this: it should be easy enough for my to change the content of the blog, the meta description etc to reflect the new keywords, but what about the URL / slug?.

Is there any way to change this without causing me a massive headache or does having my new keywords in the slug even matter?

Thanks,

Mike.

[WebElaine]

In my experience, you create more headaches by changing the URLs than you fix. If you completely change the subject of an article, it's fine to change the slug. But I'm assuming you are probably just going to research keywords and keep the same general content, just tweak some things here and there to optimize better for specific phrases, while the overall topic remains the same. If that's the case, stick with your existing slugs.

The only exception I'd make to this rule is that if you change category names, go ahead and change those slugs to match. Just research them well so you won't be changing them again. And make sure you add 301 redirects that cover all those URL changes so you don't lose link juice or have people ending up on error pages.

[Veevlimike]

Thanks that makes sense! The context of the article is exactly the same I'm just trying to optimise it better.

Does it penalise me in any way not having my focus keywords in my slug?

Thanks,

[WebElaine]

There is no penalty per se. The catch-22 of this situation is that when you change URL structure, even if you do everything perfectly right (and it's hard to make sure you have all the redirects perfect), you run the risk of losing some link juice. Part of this is because any external links and bookmarks are going to the old page and having to redirect.

But if you don't change your URL structure, you're not quite as optimized for your terms as you might otherwise be. So moving forward do pay attention to the slugs and use keywords, but don't go backward and try to overhaul everything.

Another couple of thoughts: spiders and their algorithms change over time. If you focus on what they like today, you will likely end up in a situation where you need to keep making changes to keep up with them. Whereas if you do what is best for visitors, you will likely end up better in the long term, because as their artificial intelligence grows over time, they will catch up to you. So ask yourself this: if you were a visitor and you liked the content, would your current URLs prevent you from sharing? If they're super long or the wording looks awkward, that might be a possible deterrent, but if they're not crazy and nothing would make you feel weird for sharing the link, it's almost always better to leave them as they are.

[Veevlimike]

Such a good point and thank you so much for going into this in such depth!

There's absolutely nothing wrong with the URL or even the slug. It's just from trying to do keyword research after the fact, there doesn't seem to be the search volume for the exact phrase I've used to suggest I should have used it.

Sounds like keeping the slug the same but working on optimising everything else is the way to go! That and being much more mindful of what I'm doing moving ahead!