Establishing a robust and efficient online presence—whether for a business, a personal project, or a creative endeavor—has never been more important in the digital world. Small business owners, bloggers, and everyone in between continually search for ways to optimize their online operations, and efficient link management is one key area that cannot be overlooked.
Bitly, a robust link management tool, offers a range of functionalities to help individuals and businesses make the most out of their online activities. With a free Bitly account, you can share links and track their performance to gain valuable insights into your customers’ behaviors.
From understanding the capabilities of a free Bitly account to how it can grow with your online presence needs, learn below how everyone can benefit from having a free Bitly account.
What can you do with a free Bitly account?
The free Bitly account includes two QR Codes per month, 10 links per month, and one Link-in-bio page. It also comes with five custom back-halves, PNG and JPEG QR Code download formats, and QR Code customizations to personalize your links.
The paid plans offer more functionality, including custom domains, advanced analytics, and bulk link shortening. However, for most individuals and small businesses, the free account provides sufficient functionality to manage their online activities effectively, including:
Link management
If you regularly share links via social media, email, or any other online platform, you know how quickly the URL can become long and challenging to manage. With the free plan, you can shorten any URL and create neat links that are visually appealing, memorable, and easy to share.
Bitly’s link management capabilities also include features such as link grouping, tagging, and folders to help you organize your links systematically.
QR Codes
QR Codes are synonymous with modern marketing. They are highly versatile, cost-effective, and a great way to bridge the gap between physical and online marketing campaigns. Bitly’s free plan offers two QR Codes per month, enabling you to create custom QR Codes that can redirect people to your webpage, product pages, or social media handles.
Link-in-bio
A Link-in-bio page is a single landing page that houses multiple links to your various online activities. It is particularly useful for platforms like Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter), where there is a limit to the number of links you can add to your profile.
With the free plan, you can create one branded Link-in-bio page and add up to 10 links, making it easier for your subscribers and potential customers to access all your content in one place.
Basic analytics and reporting
Bitly’s free tier comes with basic analytics and reporting features that provide valuable insights into your link performance. These include the Link-in-bio performance history and Link-in-bio analytics custom date range for 30 days, which allows you to track click-through rates, top-performing links, and other vital metrics to help you understand your audience and their behaviors better.
Integrations
Bitly integrates seamlessly with various tools and platforms, including social media management tools like Sprout Social, Hubspot, and Buffer, and productivity tools like Canva, Salesforce, and WordPress. These integrations allow you to shorten links, create custom URLs, and track performance without leaving your current workflow or adding new technologies.
Benefits of choosing Bitly over alternatives
A quick search on the internet will reveal many URL shorteners and link management tools, each offering unique features, pricing models, and capabilities. Bitly is the go-to choice due to its user-friendly interface, reliability, and robust feature set that offers these benefits:
Customization opportunities
Unlike other custom URL shorteners and link management tools, Bitly offers comprehensive customization options that allow you to create branded short links that align with your brand identity.
You can add custom domain names, personalize your links with meaningful back-halves, and customize your QR Codes to reflect your brand colors, logo, and design. This level of customization makes it easier to build brand recognition, increase trust and credibility, and drive engagement.
Long-standing service
Founded in 2008, Bitly has become one of the best URL shorteners and link management tools globally, with over 500,000 paying subscribers and 10 billion monthly connections. Such a long-standing service record speaks volumes about the reliability and credibility of Bitly as a connections platform.
Bitly has also received multiple awards and recognitions and was named to Inc.’s Best in Business List in 2022 under the software as a service (SaaS) category, further solidifying its status as a trustworthy and dependable service provider.
User-friendly interface
A common challenge with other free URL shorteners and link management tools is that the interface can be clunky, complicated, and challenging to navigate. Bitly’s simple and user-friendly interface makes it easy for anyone to create, manage, and track their custom links without needing technical skills or prior experience.
The dashboard is clean, concise, and well-organized, allowing you to find the features you need quickly and efficiently. This user-friendly design extends to the mobile app—available for Android and iOS—making it convenient to manage your links on the go.
Privacy and security
Being GDPR compliant and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield certified, Bitly adheres to strict data protection regulations and follows best data storage, encryption, and transfer practices.
All Bitly links are encrypted using HTTPS, ensuring that any data transfer between your device and the Bitly server is secure. Additionally, Bitly’s dedicated privacy policy clearly outlines how it collects, uses, and stores data, giving you greater control over your information.
High reliability
Bitly has racked up an impressive 12-year, 99.9% uptime record, making it one of the most reliable link-shortening and management tools available. This high reliability guarantees that your shortened URLs will always work, regardless of traffic spikes, server outages, or other unforeseen circumstances.
Top 5 use cases for a free Bitly account
You can leverage Bitly’s free account in numerous ways to improve your online presence, simplify link management, and drive engagement. Learn about the top 5 use cases for a free Bitly account below.
1. Branding
Similar to brands of all sizes using Bitly links to drive customers to a specific destination, individuals can also benefit from using Bitly’s link management platform. For a brand, some example destinations include a sign-up page, a website, or a blog post that highlights a specific service or product.
Brands use Bitly not only to share information but also to document, track, and analyze engagement. Their links become a timeline of posts they can reuse, repurpose, and revisit. Individuals can use custom, shortened URLs to share their social media handles, professional websites, or portfolio links. This creates a cohesive brand image and makes it easy for others to access their online presence.
2. Social media
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and TikTok feeds are curated to tell our personal stories through our own lens. Along with other social media platforms, eventually, we have so many accounts we forget or lose track of where or how our content is being shared. A Bitly short URL is the most reliable way to create a seamless connection that ensures engagement leads to a destination that converts to an action—regardless of the platform.
A Link-in-bio can also be beneficial. Directing what would be just a quick double tap to a link that goes to a blog, an online shop, a donation page, or an event page can be the difference between engagement and action.
Take it a step further and get valuable insights on that link in the Bitly Dashboard. Replicate the same approach with Twitter and Facebook, but create a unique Bitly link for each and compare the data week over week or month over month. Marketers do this on an ongoing basis to ensure their audience is going beyond a social post. This data is used to tweak messaging and eventually find what resonates with their audience.
3. Content sharing
We’ve all seen long URLs in blog posts, emails, and social media posts that look cluttered and unprofessional. Bitly allows you to customize these long links into short, branded URLs that look clean and are easy to share.
Content creators and bloggers can use Bitly to create custom short URLs for their blog posts, articles, and social media content, making it easier for readers to access the content. Bitly’s dashboard also provides link analytics and insights on these URLs, allowing creators to track engagement and understand their audience better.
4. Educational purposes
Teachers, professors, and educators can use Bitly to share resources, materials, and references with their students. With Bitly, they can create short links that lead to relevant documents, videos, or images, making it easier for students to access and navigate the resources. Educators can also track the engagement on these links, allowing them to understand which resources are most helpful for their students and make necessary adjustments to their teaching materials.
5. Events or RSVPs
Bitly can also be used for event management, helping event organizers send out invitations, track RSVPs, and monitor attendee engagement. If they need to make changes, Bitly’s link editing feature allows quick fixes without needing to resend the invitations.
During the event, organizers can track real-time engagement on Bitly links and assess which platforms drive the most attendees. This data can be used for future event planning and marketing strategies.
Understand how Bitly grows with you
As your needs grow and evolve, so can your Bitly account. From the free account with basic features, you can upgrade to a paid subscription and unlock advanced analytics, custom, branded domains, and team collaboration tools. Here is how Bitly can grow with you toward a successful online presence.
Scaling up with ease
Bitly is designed for easy scalability, allowing you to transition smoothly from the free version to more advanced paid tiers as needs grow—and when the time is right. Whether you are an individual looking to optimize your personal brand or a business with multiple team members, Bitly has the tools and features to support you every step of the way.
Investing in your link infrastructure
Working with Bitly at the free level encourages better organization and planning for links. Upgrading to a paid Bitly account can be a cost-effective decision for businesses, offering a higher return on investment through more detailed data insights and branding capabilities.
Additionally, digital assets are becoming increasingly valuable in the modern business environment, and tools like Bitly can facilitate efficient online operations and data-driven strategies. With a paid Bitly account, businesses can unlock advanced analytics and branding tools for better link management and optimization.
Building up your digital footprint
Bitly’s free and paid features can support businesses in scaling their digital footprint. As businesses grow and expand their online presence, they will inevitably have more links to manage, track, and share. Bitly’s paid plans allow for unlimited link creation and offer advanced tracking capabilities, including UTM parameters, geo-location data, and device-specific insights.
How to sign up for a Bitly account
Follow this step-by-step guide to sign up for a Bitly account and get started with link management and QR Code generation:
Step 1: Tap ‘Sign up Free’
Visit the Bitly website and tap on the Sign up Free button located in the top right corner of the homepage. Alternatively, select the Get Started button under the Free tier column on the pricing page. You can easily compare different pricing tiers and their associated features from here. Toggle between paying monthly or annually to see the price difference in paid plans.
Step 2: Log in or create an account
Tapping the Sign up Free link will lead to an account page where you can log in if you already have an account or create a new one. You can choose to sign up with a Google account or create an account with a unique username, password, and email address. It’s important to ensure that the password meets the requirements before proceeding with signing up for an account.
Step 3: Verify your account
Bitly takes account security very seriously, and as a security measure, you must verify your email address before you can start using Bitly’s link management services. Upon signing up, you’ll get a verification email with a link to verify your account. Tap on the link to go back to Bitly and access your account.
Step 4: Start using Bitly
With a free Bitly account, you can start creating shortened links for your social media profiles, blog posts, or website links. You can also generate QR Codes to add to your offline marketing materials, such as flyers or business cards. You can access basic analytics, including link clicks and top referral sites, to gain insights into your link performance.
Transform your online presence and digital strategy with Bitly
Link clutter, tracking difficulties, and the need for efficient organization are common challenges businesses face when managing their online presence. With multiple social media platforms, websites, and marketing materials to manage, keeping track of all the links and their performance can be overwhelming.
With the free Bitly account, you can easily shorten links, track their performance, and organize them with custom folders and tags.
The best part? Bitly isn’t just a one-time solution—it grows with your business.
As your online presence expands, you can upgrade to a paid account to access even more advanced analytics and branding tools, allowing for better optimization of your online strategy.
Ready to transform your online presence and digital strategy? Check out Bitly’s pricing plans and get started today.