7 Best Practices for Powerful URLs
In modern digital marketing, short links are the core elements that define most marketing strategies. Creating powerful URLs is important to have a powerful marketing effect.
So, how do you create powerful URLs for your branded links? Of course, hiring the services of a professional free URL shortener like Lnnkin is the ideal way. However, you might want to get involved in the process of creating short links. If this is your marketing path, then we have your back. We'll share the best practices that you should adhere to when creating branded links.
Practices that You Should Not Ignore When Creating Branded Links
1. Shorten & track every URL
This might sound redundant but important - you should have short links. The whole idea behind shortening URLs is to make them short. It is premised on the fact that the audience loves and appreciates short links.
URL shortening is a service that reduces the long and ugly URL, and in its place puts short links. As part of the service, you should get tracking and analytics that let you know who has been visiting the short links that you are sharing. Analytics is important to help you determine the viability of your marketing strategy.
The benefits of making your links short and tracking every URL is:
- It makes the links more manageable
- It improves marketing since short links can be shared across various platforms including those that have a word limit for posts.
2. Brand links with custom domains
Instead of using plain URLs, you can use branded links. They allow you to have the name of your brand in place of the URL. It gives you total control of your content. It is a rare service that not all free URL shortener providers offer. Top service providers like Lnnkin provides this service.
You can get started easily with them by visiting their webpage. The instructions are easy to follow. Furthermore, you get many benefits from using branded links for marketing. Some of the benefits include:
- You increase brand awareness because people will always see your brand name across marketing content
- It increases click-through rate (CTR) by about 34%
3. Use slugs when customizing short links
Slugs are the last part of the URLs. You can modify them to indicate the custom domain or subdomain that you are personalizing. For example, you can have the following as your short link: brandName.com/blog. In this example, the word blog is the slug - it indicates that the short link is targeting the blog page of the brand.
The slugs must be short and descriptive to attract more clicks. Making them short is also effective in making it easy to remember them. The benefits that you get include:
- Boost CTR while also building trust when people know what they will be clicking on
- It makes people remember your short link
- You can optimize it for mobile
4. Track performance with UTM parameters
Urchin Tracking Module (UTM) parameters help share information about the performance of digital campaigns. It helps you in tracking performance when looking at the source, campaign, medium, content, terms, etc. This extensive list of tracking parameters is useful in determining the next course of action for marketers.
With precision, marketers can know what their strengths and weaknesses are in digital marketing. Using such data, it is easy to redefine marketing strategies for success.
The benefits of tracking performance include the following:
- Get a clear picture of the interaction the audience has with your content
- Allows you to invest more in productive marketing strategies
- Initiate new marketing campaigns based on data that shows content that converts
5. Optimize short links
Whether you are creating new short links or editing existing ones, optimization is a good practice that you should invest in. It might cost you a bit more to research the right optimization strategies. However, once you understand how to optimize, you will have an advantage over your competition.
The benefits of this practice are:
- You can make changes to your short links after promoting them
- You become competitive in your niche
6. Use deep links to create a smooth mobile experience
You must recognize the fact that many people are using their mobile phones to browse. The number of mobile phone users exceeds that of desktop users. However, most digital marketers often forget this factor when creating branded links for their brands. They tend to make the links desktop-friendly only.
An effective strategy for the creation of branded links is to include deep links that will create a smooth experience for mobile phone users. You can send an invitation to them to download your mobile app if they don't have it already. Some of the benefits that you will get include:
- More engagement since more people use mobile phones
- Improved CTR
7. Generate QR Codes
QR codes are effective marketing tools that can be used both online and offline. It allows you to track the created short links and their performance whether users are online or offline. It is a bit complex if you are setting it yourself. You will need to change some parameters like destination URL, title, and tags.
If it is too complex, you should use Lnnkin for they have this service. QR codes have the following benefits when they are included as part of the marketing strategy when using short links:
- Makes it easy to track performance both online and offline
- Makes it easy for your audience to reach you
- Gives your brand a professional appearance, which increases engagement, clicks, and revenue
Conclusion
These are the best practices for super-powerful URLs. There is a silent guarantee that you will start witnessing return on investment as soon as your implement these practices. However, you must do it right to enjoy the associated benefits. This is why the professional services of a free URL shortener are ideal for a brand that seeks to implement these strategies.