URL shortening service are perhaps one of the most underrated online marketing tools. In some situations it is simply not replaceable, in this article I will explain the importance of URL shortening service.
For example, what will you do with really long links? So big that they mixed up with the perception of the rest of the content. This is especially true for social networks with their limitations of messages length.
Example of Long URL
https://long.url/product/some-category?id=1234&size=medium&coupon=true&coupon_code=xYz1234&coupon_value=20&vendor_id=123456asd
Links with conversion tracking and not only, can be very long, tens or even hundreds of characters long. You can’t insert this type of URL into a tweet, into an mailing list, and even in an ordinary post, it will look very ugly.
However, there are many services that allow you to reduce the length of the link to a compact one, convenient for use in any services, it will look like this: https://short.url/absdE This one definitely looks better than, long ugly URL which sometimes can’t even fit into screen.
Where can this be useful? I will give some tips on this post.
Use short links for a more memorable domain
For example, Telegram uses shortened URL’s https://t.me
As an example from https://telegram.org/some-long-account-to-remember-and-share
We have: https://t.me/share-this-acount
What is it for? The answer is obvious: the shorter the domain name, the better users will remember it, and the easier it will be for them to enter it manually.
Ability to track all clicks on your links, engage with customers by identify the trends
A short link is handy on its own. But many URL shortening services also allow you to set up conversion tracking on the shorten links.
And some even separately count clicks on a regular link and on a shortened one. And, of course, if the code for tracking conversions was originally contained in the link (usually it is Tracking ID as an additional URL parameter), it continues to work when shortened.
Click tracking is an important tool to get to know your visitors better. Foremost, how do they get to the site, URL Shortening Services allows tracking almost everything, devices, location etc.
Make links more informative
Some services, allow you to manually name short URLs - Custom Alias
For example, a short link to an article might look like this:
https://short.url/XYzAoi
With Custom Alias, you can set it like this:
https://short.url/20-discount
That is, instead of a chaotic set of characters, you can put your own custom alias that tells the user where a particular link leads.
Use Short URL’s in Videos
If you use video in your advertising campaign, then short links become even more relevant for you. Especially if you are going to show this video not only on your social media network. The URL in the video should be as simple and short as possible so that the user can quickly write it down or even remember it.
As for example, from this: https://barfoosite.com/awesome-product-with-20-precent-of-discount
You can turn it into this:
Make your texts more readable
Modern users are no longer so often confronted with link texts directly, and their manual entry is even less comfortable for them. Most often, links on the site are disguised under buttons, navigation elements, hyperlink texts.
Therefore, if it becomes necessary to insert links directly into the text, then it is highly desirable that they be short. Whole lines of unfinished texts are not an attractive sight, and make reading difficult. Spare your readers this inconvenience.
Use shortened links in printable materials
Let's say you are promoting a product, service, or event not only online, but also through offline channels, printed documents like order printing products - flyers, posters, discount coupons.
At the same time, you expect to attract traffic to the site through these channels and encourage users to use your links.
In this case, the user will have to manually type your long URL into the address bar of their browser. So, the shorter the link is, the more chances you have that the buyer will not be too lazy to type it to look at your service.
Use shortened links for readability of the post
This is another reason why the links are shortened. Regardless of whether we publish the link in our post on social media, in e-mail or elsewhere on the web.
Presenting a short link is much more convenient and increases the readability of the content. Very often, direct links are long and problematic to copy. They may cause technical difficulties with placing a long string of characters when we have a limited message limit.
The short link is also a more advantageous solution for sending e-mails and minimizes the risk of incorrect display in various e-mail programs.
By publishing shortened links, we can include a large number of them in the material added on the web, which will still remain legible.
Thanks to this, we will be able to count on a longer stay of users on the website with numerous links, present various links to readers, and also count on greater activity of users who will be willing to read additional materials.