Link shortening, two words that either make you feel that is a super simple process or will have you scratching your head. It’s probably not a term you’re familiar with because you may feel as long as your link gets you to your destination, mission accomplished…right? Well truth be told, links have a lot more to offer you than just a destination and Bitly is here to help you leverage and manage the power of links with just a few clicks.
Before we dive into how links can help your brand or business, let’s break down what link shortening actually is.
What Is Link Shortening
Whether you’re a digital marketer, small business owner, or enterprise organization, you probably have encountered the long url link at some point in your professional life and wondered how to minimize it or shorten it. Links can be the wild west of the internet not only because of where they point to, but because depending on link type, they can be long, complex, and distracting.
If you’re wanting to share information with a growing audience then the last thing you want is long links getting in the way and distracting them from your products, services, or content. The remedy is link shortening.
With Bitly, you can take a long link (aka destination URL) like this one:
https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2019/09/11/bitly-denver-office.html
And shorten it to a link like this one:
How Do I Use It?
The great thing about link shortening is that there are multiple ways to use them in your brand or business. Let’s say you’re a digital marketer running a campaign and want to check the amount of clicks on a certain ad or post, link shortening can provide you with those metrics.
Maybe you’re a social media marketer looking to track the performance of your links, with so many platforms being used everyday, it’s important to understand how people are engaging with your posts.
Here’s how social media marketers can track the performance of their social posts.
- Track the effectiveness of a referral program
- Build brand awareness through influencer marketing marketing
- Create links with a custom back-half to drive traffic towards your content
Here are a few of the benefits to shortening your links
1) They are aesthetically pleasing
Long URLs just don’t look great. They’re distracting and can detract from what someone is trying to convey to their audience. Long URLS shouldn’t take center stage in branded content, and with Bitly, content becomes the focus rather than a URL.
2) They are memorable
How many people can recite a 200-character URL? Not many. With Bitly, links instantly become memorable being they’re a handful of characters that are easy to remember.
3) They are trackable
With Bitly, content creators can see how many people have clicked on their links and where the links are being shared. Why is this valuable? Because it allows users to see what works when marketing online as well as which platforms provide them the most traffic.
4) They are space savers
Whether in profile bios, in Tweets, or on a business card, short links save space. This allows users to create longer, more engaging content without worrying about how much space their URL will take up.
5 ) They are versatile
Bitly can be used to create amazing online and offline experiences that your customers will love. Whether you’re creating short links to share on social media or shortening links that you can transform into QR Codes, there are several ways to make the most of your links with Bitly.
With Bitly link shortening can be done in just a few simple steps and you can get started for FREE. Yes we said FREE. Our free plan allows you to:
✅ Manage up to 10 free links a month
✅ Tag your links and categorize your links
If you fall in love with the free plan, we have plenty of options to upgrade and get even more amazing features from Bitly.