How to Shorten WordPress Page Names with Post Slugs

Posted by Laura Bergells

January 14, 2008

wordpress post slugs

There’s a difference between the name of a blog page and the title of your post. And it’s an important distinction.

The title of this post is “How to Shorten WordPress Page Names with Post Slugs”.

If you click on the title of this post, you will see the name of the page in the URL bar. The name of this page is:

/shorten-wordpress-page-names/

Usually, Wordpress automatically takes your page title and makes it your page name…which can be a search engine friendly thing to do. But it can also be a problem, because…

Long titles that appeal to people might not appeal to search engines. And short titles that appeal to search engines might not appeal to people.

Long, descriptive titles that get converted to long page names look spammy — which defy your search engine efforts. And short “keyword only” titles don’t appeal to people.

When you have a long title that appeals to PEOPLE — but not to search engines — use the WordPress Post Slug.

Shorten your page name to three-five descriptive words, and type it into the “Post Slug” area before you hit “Publish”.

Couldn’t be easier — or friendlier!