Why shorten URLs?
Remember when a friend sent you an email and you couldn’t click because it was broken? Shortened URLs on the web solve this problem. And while TinyURL, one of the oldest URL shortening services, has been around since 2002, their competition has gotten fierce and fast. With the advent of Twitter and its 140-character-or-less platform, URL shortening has become a no-brainer, and sites that offer this service are popping up all over the place.
I can’t remember exactly how I came across 9mp.com
but I am loyal and impressed with the URL shortening service. I was lucky enough to chat with one of the 9mp management team and I was totally blown away. When I first started tweeting, I wondered if there wasn’t a way to increase the relevance of these “little URLs”. That was my answer.
In addition to great custom URLs, 9mp.com and other Short links sites offer built-in real-time analytics. On my profile page, I can see a list of all my URLs, their shortened versions, and the number of hits each one has received. Each listing has a “link details” button. This will take you to a useful page of information: your site thumbnail, tags, description, page type, and even your Twitter results. Below you will find diagrams.
Charts that can track your click-through rate, link conversions
the location of those clicking on your link, and whether those users are robots or humans! Sure, you could just paste the URL into Twitter and watch it go down, but here you have the opportunity to increase the relevance so people really know what you’re talking about and see if people are responding there. Overall, this is a great SEO tool for Twitter. In fact, you can use shortened URLs anywhere on the web that you want to track, whether it’s on your Facebook profile or your own website.
What else can be condensed?
Add your links: A new URL shortening service recently debuted: ZumLink.com. ZumLink allows you to shorten your list of URLs and put them all together in one link! The site is a project of the German Internet company fiesta.net.
Share your thoughts: Another new site, Write4Net.com, lets you bypass the 140-character tweet limit by posting text content or photos directly to Twitter. You don’t need to register or log in, just enter a template and enter your Twitter login and Write4Net will publish a headline and a short URL that other users can click to view your text or static image in full. This site still has some usability issues but is another great tool for sharing information on Twitter and anywhere else that requires brevity.
Share your video: With two great services to choose from, it’s easy to tweet your video. Both TwitVid.com and TwitVid.io have great features. You can upload videos from your phone, or computer, or post directly from your webcam, perfect for vlogs. Both sites also have an embed feature that lets you post video tweets to your blog or social network. TwitVid.io allows you to retweet, reply and follow videos on the website. TwitVid.com offers its own API and live streaming from your webcam so your followers can watch your record!
Share your photos: If you’re new to TwitPic, it makes sharing photos easy! You don’t even need to sign up – if you have a Twitter account, your login information works for TwitPic too. When you sign in, you’ll see your profile information, your username, and the icon you use for Twitter. Click “Upload Photo” and you’ll be able to post your photos as soon as they’re uploaded! You can download it via the site, your phone, or their API.
Share your files: FileTwt is another new site that lets you upload documents and files to share on Twitter. The site has a size limit of 20MB (which may change in future versions) and you can send a public or private tweet. (Private tweets require registration on the site.)
Share your music: An impressive program, there are music-sharing sites for microbloggers. From my point of view, twt. fm seems to be the most user-friendly. On twt.fm, you need to log in with your Twitter account. However, once you do, the interface is easy to use, no download is required: just enter the name of the artist and the song you want to publish. The app searches the web for a stream of your song, and when you click the preview button, you can hear the music and choose whether or not you want to post a tweet. You can also find other sites,
Find your “link shortener provider” in this list of URL shortening services or go directly to 9mp.com. Again, there are so many programs being developed for microblogging sites like Twitter. Get out and explore. There are so many possibilities and new tools launch every week.
A URL shortener that provides website sharing and tracking
As affiliate marketers, we know that these referral links can be very long. We also know that we have to promote what we promote on microblogging systems like Twitter and wherever there are popular social networking sites that have a status update box. Facebook allows you to update your status. Space limit, and many of these long URLs or website domain names take up all or part of that limited space. I use Bit.ly to shorten my website’s referral links.
There are many URL shortening services out there, but with Bit.ly, the URL shortens more than other services, and the shortened website domain name does not expire. This is your shortened URL to save forever.
Bit.ly is more than just a service that shortens website domain names. On the bit.ly website, a branded URL can be shared with Twitter. You just click the share button below the link. You can post a message along with the shortened URL. When you click the “copy” button, the website address goes into the post box on Bit.ly. I have all my Twitter accounts listed on Bit.ly, so I can choose from a drop-down menu which Twitter account I want to post my URL and message to.
Another cool thing about Bit
ly, aside from being a great URL shortening service, is that I can track the number of clicks on all my shortened URLs and see which countries the clicks are coming from. I can see how many clicks in each country list. That will tell me something important.
People visit my websites from Canada, India, England, or mostly from the United States. Below each saved URL on Bit.ly is an “info” button, which provides this information both graphically and in text. Such a useful page. I see which referral links reach more people and adjust my marketing strategies accordingly.
I spend so much time on Twitter, and now that this website is going down
Now I know what Twitter users are talking about my referral links or blogs. I can see what tweets are out there in the Twitterverse about any of the websites that have Bit.ly shortened URLs that I have saved.
Bit.ly has tools that are great additions to this URL shortening service. I love the Bit.ly sidebar. I can visit the website and open the sidebar. The sidebar automatically puts the website name in the website short title, and below that, I can post to Twitter, Facebook, or Gmail with the shortened website domain already filled in the post field. It’s so cool.
All affiliate marketers need a URL shortening service in their affiliate marketing toolkit. This will make the partner’s life easier and more useful. With Bit.ly, you can share, store your URLs, track the number and location of clicks, and submit posts to all your Twitter accounts.
Visit my website