How To Shorten A URL

Why do we want to shorten a URL?

In the wonderful world of social media, we want our posts, pins, tweets, to be short and to the point.

So if you have a URL that that looks like this…

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=how%20to%20shorten%20a%20url

Well, that’s just not very appealing to click.

Soo we use Google’s URL shortener to make it clickable, take a look…

Another important feature to note is that as a marketer, we want to know if anyone is actually clicking on our stuff.

We don’t want to waste our time.

This cool tool shows us.

Oh, one thing I must tell you, to shorten a URL with Google, you have to have a free Gmail account.

If you don’t, no biggie, just create one.

If you don’t want to use it as an actual email… that’s okay, you don’t have to.

You just need  it to have access to Google’s URL Shortener.

OR…you can use a different site to shorten a URL.

Google’s URL shortener is not the only player.

There is also Tiny URL…

And bit.ly…

They are all good and have pros and cons to each.

What you might like about bit.ly and Tiny URL is that you can customize the link.

In other words, you can use keywords in the URL.

It’s just like a domain though, you get to find one that hasn’t been taken.

What I like about Google URL is that I can shorten the same long link numerous times if I want.

The others won’t allow it.

Why would I want to?

That’s another discussion…

When you shorten a URL it WILL NOT…

Allow you to put URL’s in places that won’t accept the original link.

For example, if you’re on Facebook and you want to hide a URL that Facebook will no longer allow you to put on it’s site, simply shortening it WON’T WORK.

The giant is too smart for that.

Instead you’ll need to buy a domain name, forward it to the URL…AND..Mask it as well to be able to use it on Facebook.

Then if you want to you can shorten it to track the number of times it gets clicked.

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