As our world moves more into the online space, everything put in it—a product page, a personal profile, or even just a single photo—must have an address called the Uniform Resource Locator or URL.
Much like an address in the real world, the URL tells the user how to find what they're looking for. However, as your web presence expands, so does these URLs. Because as you add more and more content, the addresses generated for these content become more convoluted.
So how do you keep it simple, and why should you do it?
Why URLs Become Long, Winded, and Chaotic
When you create a website, you tend to start with something simple, say company.com. At the start, you may add some basic pages to it, like About Us, Products & Services, and a Contact Page. These pages can have easy to read and remember URLs, like company.com/about-us or company.com/services.
However, you will eventually want to add more tools and content. For example, you might want to add a tracking algorithm to your site, which detects where your visitors come from. Or you might want to add a sign-up sheet that's only active for a time.
This can turn a simple company.com/about-us URL into a monstrosity like company.com/about-us/ref=goog.le?pd_rd_i-sdvcsdcs23xcas&th3. When users see links like these, they might balk at clicking on them because of all the extraneous characters attached at the end.
Long URLs Are Bad
Addresses with many characters may seem harmless to some, but they can actually discourage many people from clicking on the link. Here are several reasons why you should avoid long, winded URLs.
A Tool for Bad Actors
While the internet is an excellent tool for businesses and personalities to expand their horizons, many bad actors also use it. That's why many users are wary of unfamiliar links—even if the webpage looks familiar.
For example, some people may look at a website with the address company.com as a safe link. But if the link they see is company.com/about-us/dp/B0342fsfs34da2/ref=1drv.43c.3423/dff32=?1fd, they might think that the link, or worse, the webpage, is compromised.
Confusing Links
Long URLs that don't show the connection between the linked content and the address can confuse your visitors. If you're saying this link will lead to your company's sign up page, but the URL is goog.le/form/signup/company/nov21, they might think that they're giving their personal information to a third-party company, even if you made that sign-up sheet on the Google site.
But if you use a URL shortener and turn the address to form into company.com/sign-up, then your followers are more than likely to follow the link. That's because it's clear to them that your company owns the link.
Bad for Sharing
One of the best ways to increase your reach is to do so via social media. When you can get more shares, likes, and reactions on any popular platform, then you're more likely to have a greater number of visitors to your page.
However, long URLs aren't great for posts. That's because most social media platforms only limit posts to a certain number of characters. For example, Twitter limits posts to 280 characters. And although Facebook lets you post more than 63 thousand characters, your audience is unlikely to read that.
A short URL gives you more leeway to say what you need to on social media without a long address taking up a third of the post. Furthermore, as stated earlier, a clear short URL will let your followers know what they're clicking or tapping into.
More Than Just Short URLs
Many people think that URL shorteners are good for one thing—cutting down long addresses into shorter, easier to read chunks. And while that is true for some URL shorteners out there, you get so much more than that with Short.io.
Tracking Performance
In today's world, data is king. If you know where your visitors come from, how they go into your site, what devices they're using, and more, you can create an accurate map of what your audience wants.
You can also use these metrics to determine if your paid advertising, sales pages, social media campaigns, and more are effective. When you have this preview of what engages your audience, you can strategize your marketing to cater to your actual audience.
These better strategies lead to better outcomes, helping you connect better with prospects, clients, and customers.
Get Multiple Domains
Some URL shorteners let you have a custom domain. However, it only allows you to have one. Short.io enables you to have five, ten, fifty, or even more domains, depending on your need. So if you have different pages for your business or have several companies with each requiring a unique domain, you don't need to have multiple Short.io accounts.
This is also useful if you're an online marketer handling several clients—you no longer have to pay for multiple accounts just to create custom short links for each unique customer. Instead, you can use Short.io's multiple domain feature, thus saving on money and effort.
Sharing the Workload
As your team grows, you will want other colleagues to share the workload with you. However, this is impossible if only you have access to the link shortener—or unsecure if you're sharing your username and password.
So instead of doing that, you can add your colleagues to your Short.io account, giving them access to links and data. You can further assign each member a role, so you can pick which ones can only see that statistics, create and edit links, onboard new members, and more.
This feature can take a lot of burden off your shoulders, as you don't have to create links and check all the data personally. You can delegate the work to your trusted teammates, allowing you to focus on more important things.
A Link Shortener for All
If you're looking for a feature-packed link shortener, then you should look no further than Short.io. It packs a lot of features while offering it an unprecedented low price of…free.
Even if you have a free account, you get to enjoy some of the features like custom domains, branded links, link automation, click tracking, and more. And if you want to get more features, you can also try out their premium services for seven days at no cost.
Start Link Shortening with Short.io
Get started for freeBranded short links give you two primary advantages—improved visibility and excellent data. While the former makes your links look professional, it's the insights you get from all the clicks that will prove to be most valuable. Because when you know what your metrics are, then you can ensure you have an efficient campaign.
What did you learn?
- advantages of tiny links
- how to create short url
- how to shorten links
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