Everything Typepad

Create User-Friendly Permalink For Better SEO

Did you know when you add a title to your blog post or page that Typepad uses it to make your permalink? While the title may be great for drawing attention to your post, it may not be the best for your URL. Today, we're going to walk through how to change your permalink (AKA slug) and discuss the benefits of changing it. 

Change Your Permalink

On the compose page, you'll see the permalink displayed under the title. The permalink contains your domain, the publish date, and your slug. When you choose to edit the permalink, you are editing the slug. 

Pro Tip: A slug is the part of a permalink that comes after the domain extension.

Why Change Your Permalink

As stated earlier, your title may not make the best permalink. Your permalink should be short, descriptive, and SEO-friendly. Let's review these recommendations together. 

Short 

Your slug should be around three to five keywords. Anything longer and it may become difficult for readers to remember the URL. The full permalink will also look more professional when you sharing it on social sites. 

Here is an example from Everything Typepad:

Post Title: Need New Pinterest Followers? Showcase Pinterest On Your Blog

Original URL: https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2021/03/need-new-pinterest-followers-showcase-pinterest-on-your-blog.html

Edited URL: https://everything.typepad.com/blog/2021/03/add-pinterest-widget.html

You can see that we shorten the slug so it's easier to remember. 

Descriptive

Make sure your slug tells the reader exactly what they'll be reading about. You'll gain their trust when they see your link describes the information in your post.  

SEO Friendly

When thinking of a good slug, make sure to include SEO-friendly keywords. This helps Google and your readers know what the post is about and can approve your rankings. 

Tips For Creating Your Slug

Use A Hyphen Between Words

When you enter the words for your slug, make sure to add a hyphen or underscore between them. If you don’t, Typepad will display an error when you attempt to save your new permalink, reminding you what is allowed in the slug. We advise using hyphens, but underscores work as well. 

Edit Before You Publish

Edit the slug before you publish your post. If you have published your post and shared it with your readers, any edit will break the original post URL. This is a bad experience for your readers. 

Leave Out Function Words

When creating your slug, try to leave out function words as long as the slug still makes sense. Functions words include the, a, an, is, etc.

Don’t Use Punctuation

If you try to use punctuation in your slug, Typepad will give you an error reminding you to only use letters, numbers, hyphens, or underscores. 

Now that you know about editing your permalink, take the time with your next post to create a short, descriptive, SEO-friendly slug to improve reader's engagement and search engine ranking. You can use Google Analytics to help track your posts' views to compare older, unedited permalinks to your new, edited permalinks. 

Do you have any tips you use when customizing your permalinks? Let us know in the comments! 

Everything You Want To Know About Images For Your Blog

Today, we are going to talk about the different file types, recommended image sizes, and image SEO.  What makes a great image for your blog? That’s an easy and complex question to answer. Your images are the supporting tools for your words. You want to make sure you provide the best images for your words. 

File Types

In Typepad, you can upload a JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Each file has different strengths and should be used in different instances. 

 

JPEG/JPG: Joint Photographic Experts Group

 

This format will allow you to display millions of colors. This is an excellent format for images with lots of colors and is complex. This file can be compressed into smaller files without losing its clarity. Smaller files have less impact on your blog's load time. This file is great for real-world images, images with complex colors, and if the image has shading light and dark. 

 

PNG: Portable Network Graphics 

 

This format is great for transparent images. It allows you to create a clear and crisp image that is transparent. You can place that image (like a logo) on top of other images or backgrounds. PNGs are also great for screenshots. The text is clearer and transitions between dark and light colors are crisper. 

 

GIF: Graphics Interchange Format

 

This format is used for animated images. They are like very short videos but in image form. These files are very large and should be used sparingly. They can cause longer load times for the page. If you want to find some great gifs, check out Giphy. Once you have selected to best GIF you can add it to your post. 

Image Size

The size of your image will depend on where you want to put your image. Images for the web are made up of pixels. These are very small squares that make up an image (if you zoom into an image, you can see them). When describing the size of an image, we use pixels (px).

 

When you insert an image into Typepad, we compress it so it will load quickly on your site. You want to make sure the image is larger than the area you are inserting so when it is compressed it will not lose any quality. We’re going to break down your blog into different sections and give you recommendations for image sizes. The examples shown are from a Design Lab theme, but this can be used as a guide for other themes. 

Banner Image

This image goes above your blog posts. It’s the images that can showcase your blog logo and name. You have two options, the banner can go the width of the blog area or the width of the browser. 

 

Recommend image size for a blog-width banner.

Width: 1140px       Height: 250px

 

 

Recommend image size for a browser-width banner.

Width: 1400px       Height: 250px

 

Sidebar

When selecting your blog's layout, you can add sidebars to either the left, right, or split on either side. The sidebar will appear on all blog posts and pages on your blog. The sidebar is a great place to display information about yourself, your blog, and your ads. We have a module called Sidebar Image that you can use to insert your images into the sidebar. 

 

When creating an image for your sidebar you want to make sure the width is correct. We recommend a width of 500px wide and an auto-adjusted height to keep the image proportional. If you want to create a profile image, we recommend 500px by 500px. 

Post/Page

When composing a blog post or page for your blog the size of the image you want to use depends on what you want the post to look like. We go over some popular image placements and the recommended sizes below. 

 

Header/Featured Image

 

A header or featured image is an image that appears before the text of your blog post. It can reiterate or enhance your post title. You see this in Everything Typepad blog posts. The image size recommended for your header/featured image is 1000px wide and 350px high. 

 

 

Infographic

 

Infographics are visual ways to provide information to your readers. You can add graphs and small text to present information to your readers. These will be larger image files so we recommend you use the JPG file format as it will be compressed to help it load faster. When designing your infographic we recommend keeping it between 600px to 1000px wide and no more than 1800 high (or long). These should provide basic points about a topic, if you want to expand on the points, write them out in the blog post. Check out how we've used an infographic in our post 25 Mobile Design Principles from Google. 

 

Wrapping Text Around an image

 

For smaller images, or if you want to reduce the space in your post, use our text-wrapping feature. This will wrap your text around an image. If the image is too large, you will have a small sliver of text next to your image and it will look out of place. If you want to wrap text around your image we recommend staying around 250px wide and keeping the height proportional. 

 

 

Full-Size Image

 

Full-size images are great ways to break up a large piece of text in your post with a large image. You can use this to showcase visual examples to better explain your idea or show off your images. We recommend the width of the image be around 1000px wide and an auto-adjusted height to remain proportional. 

 

Image SEO

Image SEO will help your images and posts be found in search engines. Here are some tips to help your images SEO and get your content found in search engines. 

 

Image Name

 

What is the image 73q7478303437.png about? If you don’t know neither will the search engines. Make sure to give your image a name anyone could understand. For example, name the image Me_at_Santa_Monica_Beach.png so search engines can pick out keywords from the name. 

 

You can rename the image before you upload it into your post or you can make the change in Typepad. From the Compose page, double click on the image. In the pop up you will see the name of the image in the Description box, you can update this box to be more SEO friendly. This will add the description to the image title and alt tag. 

 

 

Describe The Image

 

Like you, search engines look for clues about an image in the text around it. Make sure the text around your image talks about the image or uses the same verbiage as the image name and alt tag. 

 

These helpful tips apply if you create images for your blog or find images from free image sites. If you find images from the internet, check out Blogger Beware - What You Need to Know about Using Images on Your Blog.   This shares tips on how to safely use images found on the web. 

 

Images are a great way to visually showcase your ideas and thoughts. What are some of your tips to help your image stand out?