A custom URL shortener lets you brand your links Keep things looking neat, tidy and, well, friendly with a URL that’s as short as possible. With so many letters and backslashes and numbers and question marks, anything could happen when we click that link! Anything! If you’re linking to a specific page buried deep on your website, or are using UTM parameters to track your visitors, you might find yourself wrestling with a lengthy URL.Īn oversized URL will look clunky pretty much anywhere you use it-in social posts, shared via text, pasted into an email.īut worse than that, long URLs also look super suspicious. There are a lot of good reasons to use a URL shortener if you’re going to be sharing a link. In some cases, you can even customize this mini URL with a custom phrase. Your new, shorter URL will typically include the shortener site’s address, plus a combination of random letters.įor example, if I punched in a URL like /tv-shows/puppy-bowl/full-episodes/puppy-bowl-xvi into the Hootsuite Ow.ly link shortener, it would generate ow.ly/uK2f50AJDI6. Free 30-Day Trial What is a URL shortener?Ī URL shortener is a tool that creates a short, unique URL that will redirect to the specific website of your choosing.īasically: they make a URL shorter and simpler. Jay Dillon is the Director of Inbound Experts who specialise in social media, SEO, PPC, content and email marketing for brand awareness and new business leads. Without stats, how are we as digital marketers supposed to know something is really working? When you use URL shorteners you’ll be able to know how many clicks you’re receiving and prove the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. If you haven’t already, test some of these tools out and see which works best for you. Below is a video with more about vanity URLs: They are one of several organisations using vanity URLs nowadays. They provide the same information as a shortened URL but instead of showing up as bit.ly or ow.ly it could show up like Time Inc.’s vanity URL which is ti.me. What are Vanity/Branded URLs?Ī vanity URL is simply a custom branded URL that replaces one of the above URL shorteners and uses a company’s customised branding. The important thing is to have the proper social media analytics tools to measure the performance of shortened URLs. While the most popular incentive to using URL shorteners has been to avoid exceeding Twitter’s 140 character limit, it’s a good idea to use these shorteners on any social network, in e-mails, and on your site. Two Frequently Asked Questions about URL Shorteners… Are shortened URLs only for Twitter? Here’s sample of an ow.ly summary report generated within Hootsuite: Essentially, URL click data can be used to increase the chances of your followers clicking a link. For example, if 50 people click on a URL about a funny post promoting your new mobile app but only 10 people click on a URL about a more mundane post, this knowledge can be applied for future content creation and sharing. With the Ow.ly tool you can see a quick snapshot of the number of clicks on any link you shortened within HootSuite – insight you can use to determine what tweets or posts resonate most with your followers and potential conversions. The Ow.ly URL shortener is a standout because it tracks how many “human clicks” your links receive. When you shorten a URL you’ll be able to track click-through rates and even track where the clicks are occurring geographically. If you post a long URL, you won’t be able to track clicks or real-time engagement with it. Using these shorteners provides you with valuable data on how people behave when faced with your shortened URL. Remember though: bit.ly tracks all clicks, even non-human ones. It also offers tracking metrics so you know exactly how many people are clicking on your link. bit.ly is one of the first and most popular URL shortening services. 3 Top URL Shortenersīit.ly is a free service that allows you to share links directly from their site to your Twitter profile, or copy/paste the link for use anywhere. Some URL shorteners also provide tracking abilities so you can track how many clicks you receive on the shortened link. As you may know, a URL shortener converts a regular URL into a more condensed format. This post will cover what URL shorteners are, which ones are used the most today, and why they should be used in the first place. So much effort is put into creating great content that this little string of characters gets knocked to the bottom of the list even though it can be crucial to our social media marketing and SEO. We often overlook the unsung hero of our social media posts: the URL.
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