WHAT IS URL SHORTENER
🤑 WHAT IS URL SHORTENER 🤑
A URL shortening service is a third-party website that converts that long URL to a short, case-sensitive alphanumeric code. Simply put, this means that a URL shortening service takes ridiculously long URLs (web addresses) and makes them short. Technically speaking, a URL is created manually or automatically by your web application, so when people connect to your website the server will know which page to direct the user. As a key part of your web presence, there are several good reasons for using URL shortening.
It couldn’t be any simpler than that.
I want to clarify that a URL shortener is the same as a link shortener… is the same as a link shrinker… a link compressor… a URL condenser… a vanity URL creator… I think that’s them all covered. They are all different ways of saying the same thing, which is that we want to take something long and ugly, then make it short and cute. To keep it simple, I will stick with the term URL shortener from today until the day I die.
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
Features – understanding what they offer you, especially what they offer for free.
Price – what you might have to pay, what paid offerings do they have, and how do they compare with other URL shorteners.
User base – How many customers do they have and how stable are they as a company.
Ease of use – UI, flow and good design.
Quality of education – How are they doing when it comes to teaching their audience about their tools?
Link branding – How easy do they make it customize to your domain and make branded short links? And are they “drinking their own Kool-aid” when it comes to sharing on social media?
It’s perfectly explained in this gif:
We always recommend using your own custom domain when sharing links online as it leads to increased link trust, brand awareness, and click-through rate.
If you want to find out more about the difference between branded and generic short links, you can check out the video below:
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
There are dozens of plugins, websites, and open-source code bases that allow you to shorten a link or use a 301 redirect to move users and traffic from one web address to another. This is a frequently solved problem.
But that is not what URL shorteners are about…
Also, despite the word “shortener” being in the name, URL shorteners are no longer necessarily about keeping links extremely short on character length.
The most famous reason for shrinking links was, of course, Twitter, who now treats all links as 23 characters regardless of actual length, and who even more recently upped the characters of each tweet to 280 characters.
So what then is a URL shortener all about?
Modern URL shorteners are focused on a few things:
This is one of the main reasons I recommend not using your own domain and hosting for your URL shortener. You need your links to be up 100% of the time and redirected as fast as possible.
Use the technology that companies like Rebrandly are offering you for free, rather than relying on your own.
Side note: Most people don’t know this, but most URL shorteners are actually focused on serving heavy traffic sites, and not everyday internet users.
For most people, a free URL shortener is all they need.
If you are only using it to share a handful of links on your personal social channels, or are running a small local business, then you will never really need a paid version.
But if you’re a medium to large business, or your entire company revolves around digital marketing and inbound traffic generation, then you will probably be looking for some sort of paid solution at some point.
How many links and clicks are you generating?
If you are under 2,500 link clicks, and only need 500 or fewer links created a month, you can rest assured that you should not be paying for your URL shortening services.
What’s the size of your budget?
Are you ready for massive traffic and willing to pay to track it? Then you can afford some of the higher tiered offerings from Rebrandly, ClickMeter, and others.
Are you still in the early stages of your startup and only have one member on your marketing team? Then you probably should be using a fairly cheap, or free, solution until you make it big.
What’s the size of your team?
Some URL shorteners make team management a piece of cake, while others force you to share an account.
If you’re going to be using this tool across a team of 10 digital marketers, advertisers, content managers, and social media managers, you are only going to find a handful of suitable solutions.
But if it’s mostly just you, then you don’t need the fancier products.
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
Why are you using the URL shortener?
Some of these URL shorteners are structured simply to help embed UTM parameters and allow you to better track links in Google Analytics (we do this also, by the way), while others are focused on helping you monetize your links by inserting interstitial ads.
And if you’re using your URL shortener for social media management, you will definitely want to use one that has a web extension, the ability to easily brand and adjust your links, and a lot of integrations with marketing tools
🤑 THANKS FOR WATCHING🤑
A URL shortening service is a third-party website that converts that long URL to a short, case-sensitive alphanumeric code. Simply put, this means that a URL shortening service takes ridiculously long URLs (web addresses) and makes them short. Technically speaking, a URL is created manually or automatically by your web application, so when people connect to your website the server will know which page to direct the user. As a key part of your web presence, there are several good reasons for using URL shortening.
It couldn’t be any simpler than that.
I want to clarify that a URL shortener is the same as a link shortener… is the same as a link shrinker… a link compressor… a URL condenser… a vanity URL creator… I think that’s them all covered. They are all different ways of saying the same thing, which is that we want to take something long and ugly, then make it short and cute. To keep it simple, I will stick with the term URL shortener from today until the day I die.
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
How we rated the best URL shorteners
We rated each URL shortener based on what we thought would be the most important consideration factors for users:Features – understanding what they offer you, especially what they offer for free.
Price – what you might have to pay, what paid offerings do they have, and how do they compare with other URL shorteners.
User base – How many customers do they have and how stable are they as a company.
Ease of use – UI, flow and good design.
Quality of education – How are they doing when it comes to teaching their audience about their tools?
Link branding – How easy do they make it customize to your domain and make branded short links? And are they “drinking their own Kool-aid” when it comes to sharing on social media?
What is a Custom URL Shortener?
A custom, or branded URL shortener, is when you’ve connected your own custom domain to a URL shortener which acts as a base for all the short links you create. Instead of using a generic domain such as bit.ly or rebrand.ly, you can pick your own.It’s perfectly explained in this gif:
We always recommend using your own custom domain when sharing links online as it leads to increased link trust, brand awareness, and click-through rate.
If you want to find out more about the difference between branded and generic short links, you can check out the video below:
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
How URL Shorteners Work
URL Shortening is simultaneously very simple and very complex.There are dozens of plugins, websites, and open-source code bases that allow you to shorten a link or use a 301 redirect to move users and traffic from one web address to another. This is a frequently solved problem.
But that is not what URL shorteners are about…
Also, despite the word “shortener” being in the name, URL shorteners are no longer necessarily about keeping links extremely short on character length.
The most famous reason for shrinking links was, of course, Twitter, who now treats all links as 23 characters regardless of actual length, and who even more recently upped the characters of each tweet to 280 characters.
So what then is a URL shortener all about?
Modern URL shorteners are focused on a few things:
- Link tracking and analytics
- Embedding UTM parameters using a URL Builder
- Link retargeting
- Link branding
This is one of the main reasons I recommend not using your own domain and hosting for your URL shortener. You need your links to be up 100% of the time and redirected as fast as possible.
Use the technology that companies like Rebrandly are offering you for free, rather than relying on your own.
Side note: Most people don’t know this, but most URL shorteners are actually focused on serving heavy traffic sites, and not everyday internet users.
How to choose the right URL shortener for you
For you personally, you need to make a decision based on how many links and how much traffic you plan to generate using the URL shortener, the size of your budget, the size of your team, and the purpose you are using the URL shortener for. Is it for social media? Or online advertising? Affiliate marketing? Personal branding? The list goes on…For most people, a free URL shortener is all they need.
If you are only using it to share a handful of links on your personal social channels, or are running a small local business, then you will never really need a paid version.
But if you’re a medium to large business, or your entire company revolves around digital marketing and inbound traffic generation, then you will probably be looking for some sort of paid solution at some point.
How many links and clicks are you generating?
If you are under 2,500 link clicks, and only need 500 or fewer links created a month, you can rest assured that you should not be paying for your URL shortening services.
What’s the size of your budget?
Are you ready for massive traffic and willing to pay to track it? Then you can afford some of the higher tiered offerings from Rebrandly, ClickMeter, and others.
Are you still in the early stages of your startup and only have one member on your marketing team? Then you probably should be using a fairly cheap, or free, solution until you make it big.
What’s the size of your team?
Some URL shorteners make team management a piece of cake, while others force you to share an account.
If you’re going to be using this tool across a team of 10 digital marketers, advertisers, content managers, and social media managers, you are only going to find a handful of suitable solutions.
But if it’s mostly just you, then you don’t need the fancier products.
READMORE|TOP 5 URL SHORTENER WEBSITE
Why are you using the URL shortener?
Some of these URL shorteners are structured simply to help embed UTM parameters and allow you to better track links in Google Analytics (we do this also, by the way), while others are focused on helping you monetize your links by inserting interstitial ads.
And if you’re using your URL shortener for social media management, you will definitely want to use one that has a web extension, the ability to easily brand and adjust your links, and a lot of integrations with marketing tools
🤑 THANKS FOR WATCHING🤑
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