Question about this page which has a single word slug (banking) and asking if any knowledgeable WP aficionados can recommend whether or not [B]improving the slug like this[/B], will improve the SEO aspect for the page? [URL=“http://john.do/post-slugs/”][B]After reading this[/B], I am curious
Long URL titles sure are ugly aren’t they 
Search engine do look at URL’s but I suspect that they don’t carry much weight any more because they have become abused with people just stuffing key words into them.
I’d always suggest customising your URL’s to what feels right, and what would suit your visitors if they have to either read them or type them out. For instance, category URL’s should IMHO be short and to the point. Single entry URL’s should be descriptive enough to understand the content on the page, eg instead of just duplicating the entry title in the URL such as domain.com/blog/breakfast-recipes-using-bacon-and-eggs-to-fill-you-up-this-weekend shorten it to something like domain.com/blog/weekend-breakfast-recipes which is much more readable for humans.
Concentrate on writing articles, make them useful and interesting rather than fret too much about URL’s
thanks bluedreamer. You can see that the slug is relative short and to the point. I appreciated your input and do concur with all you’ve said. Here’s my question then…what if I add “-cartoons” to that slug, so it reads “banking-cartoons”. Is it OK to tweak that slug and “update / publish” that same page without having it affect anything else? I mean, can we tweak slugs like that? Curious…
You can call your URL titles whatever you like, so if /banking-cartoons is appropriate for the the content then yes that’s fine and people can understand what the page is about.
Be careful though, if your /banking page is already listed on search engines and you rename it to /banking-cartoons then the old URL will be a dead link, that’s easily fixed by adding a redirect in your .htaccess file.
I’m no expert on this, so feel free to ignore me, but as you already have “cartoons” in the domain name, and the entire site is about cartoons, adding “cartoons” to the slug seems redundant and pointless. Search engines will already be well aware of the content of your page - as will any human looking at your existing slug. I think you’re setting yourself a lot of unnecessary work if you go down this path.
I appreciate all perspectives…nothing is taken lightly. So thank you for the input. All of this being said then, my next question is how I can improve my current results of being on bottom of the page and make that result climb upwards? [B][COLOR=“#0000FF”]See this set of G search results for example[/COLOR][/B]. My chosen search term of course is in the search box.
If I were you, instead of moving up in the first page I’d think more about getting shown here
https://www.google.com/search?q=banking+cartoons&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=uF61U4CYFrSgsQTm-oGgBQ&ved=0CCUQsAQ&biw=1402&bih=726
Great hearing Mittineague. [B]Here is actual page[/B] at bottom of those search results I previously posted. You’ll notice that first image (Carving of woman on front of boat - numbered #76) . . . you’ll notice underneath each image are a set of image tags . . . so am I considering tweaking the image tags then? You’ll notice I didn’t want to go too far overboard (pun intended) on tagging my images and roughly tagged each one around 6 times at the maximum. One keyword I did want to avoid was the word “cartoon”, so as to avoid “stuffing”. So those first couple of key words like “Boat” and “Credit Union” etc…should those have the text “cartoon” added after each? I.e. to read “Boat Cartoon”, “Credit Union Cartoon” etc.?
Hmmm. Maybe you could automate a way to replace the alt attribute values with some of that? eg. instead of them all being
alt="Banking Financial Cartoon 66 a Cartoon Image and funny joke for license by Dan Rosandich"
with only the number being different, something like
alt="Banking Financial Cartoon, Boat, Credit Union, Farnsworth, Ocean, Politically Correct, Sea, Ship Captain"
[ot]I see you’ve never requested a Site Review. Maybe you should consider doing so?
Read before requesting a review. and [URL=“http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?841492-Need-a-review”]Need a review?[/ot]
I haven’t a clue on how best to do that…I didn’t build the site entirely on my own…I did have some assistance and I only set up the images in folders and then take instructions on what to do next. This is actually where I’ve run into brick walls with this site, so far as SEO’ing the pages etc.
A quick search of the WordPress plugin repository gives these two
Since the sites main focus is images, I think it would be worth your time checking them out.
Really appreciate that lead…I have only 2 or 3 plugins on the site that are active. One is Yoast SEO and the other is Jetpack . . I don’t think it would hurt to download, install and use a new one. I will look into these. I also wonder if it’s advisable to add keywords to existing images that have been tagged?
You might find it helpful to read this tutorial on alt text first.
So it says two things in that article - “alt tags are important” and “An empty alt attribute (alt=”“) will suffice.”. So in other words they’re good and “no need to use them” so what does one glean from this? Makes WordPress even more confusing. The good thing is at least my page in question is on the FIRST page of results (for the chosen search term of “banking cartoons”). My frustration then comes in how to get the page to now elevate in those results. I assume adding the additional keyword of “cartoon” to each tag will screw the page up, correct? Which is even more frustrating. I did name each image prior to publishing that page (and the entire site in fact), with specific keywords, aside from tagging each page those images appear on. Still, it is on the low end of the totem pole
If you read the article carefully, you’ll find that they’re good because:
Alternative text serves several functions:
- It is read by screen readers in place of images allowing the content and function of the image to be accessible to those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities.
- It is displayed in place of the image in browsers if the image file is not loaded or when the user has chosen not to view images.
- It provides a semantic meaning and description to images which can be read by search engines or be used to later determine the content of the image from page context alone.
It doesn’t say there’s no need to use them, but that “An empty alt attribute (alt=”“) will suffice” when “the content of the image is presented within the surrounding content” and use of alt text would be redundant. There is also no need to use alt text for images which are purely decorative.
Yes, I did understand that part (with bullet points) but it just seemed to minimize the fact as it went on.Since I initially planned my site (well over a year ago and then some), I made certain to give each image a succint keyword file name + added tags to 99.9% of the pages - so from that standpoint (it being an image-based site), I thought I had my bases covered. The actual rub lies in the fact that will a page like the “banking cartoons” one, go any further up the ladder or is it now stagnant? If it is stagnant, what else could I do to that specific page? I mean, I could write additional descriptive content possibly? Possibly create a blog post about that page and the images that can be found throughout that page? I do have a separate blog on the site . . . . so maybe an additional in-site link to another page would help that page that much more? Image wise, there is no sense in adding anything else, since as you emphasize clearly, “any use of alt text would be redundant”…same thesis would apply to “decorative” addition of an image in more descriptive text I believe.
As mentioned, at the very least, it’s on the actual first page of SERPs…the real rub lies in how to actually get that to elevate further up in the results.
Addendum:
I also thought of this: What if I could get more backlinks to that specific page and make certain they are good quality? I.e. in directory listings on page about finance, investing + getting bl’s on banker blogs or?