When sharing content online, any SEO worth their salt is aware that people would be judging every single associated aspect of said content. This includes what hashtag you use, how good is your bio profile, and even how your link looks. When it comes to links, there are quite a few mistakes that people commonly make when using a link shortener.
URL shortening is a simple enough concept: you cut a URL’s length and turn it into something cute. Neglecting that basic objective can add to a list of things which keep you from rising above the competition.
Turning to a Random URL Slug
What many call a slashtag, or as it is more technically known, a random URL slug, has become the biggest problem social media marketers have to face these days. You could easily stumble into an extra 100 visitors a month by going the other way; this involves throwing a little time and effort into beautifying your links.
Down at the brass tacks, people will always recollect common words and phrases more easily, and remembering that is never a waste of gray matter. Throw in a custom keyword and a branded domain, and you can expect significant long-term benefits in terms of link trust, which is gold to the majority of SEO experts Cochin has to offer.
Setting Up on a Generic Domain
URL shortening is a highly advanced industry, offering a wide range of features to users. One of these is the option to connect brand domains fairly cheaply and easily. A custom link shortener lets you ensure that your links represent your brand exclusively, evoke trust, and most importantly from an SEO standpoint, do nothing to affect your ranking in a bad way (they do have the potential to boost your click-through rate, which is good).
Even tracking your links can take a more efficient turn when you use a custom domain, which is why you see this invariably included in the finest SEO services Cochin has to offer.
Skipping UTM Parameters
When you get on Google Analytics, one thing that will be hard to miss is the fact that there is substantial traffic that fails to get tracked back to its original source. In many cases, a social media marketer could end up losing credit for their conversion results to activity on Twitter and/or other platforms.
One way to prevent this is by using UTM parameters whenever you share content. You basically add your URL, and then fill in the campaign source, medium, and campaign. After changing the URL slug, you are good to share the branded link on social media. The main outcome of this short exercise is a more accurate traffic report, which should be plenty.
Going by URL Shortener Numbers
Suppose you shared a post to 1000 followers, and from that, got 100 website visits right off the bat. Suspiciously enough, there isn’t a single retweet or share in there, but you do not count the teeth of a gift horse, right? Wrong (at least here).
Chances are that plenty of what you got is from bot traffic, even after allowing for a few visitors who “bounced” right away. Most URL shortening services fail to remove this traffic from the reports that they provide, consequently raising the marketer’s hopes and often leading them wrong. Double checking is vital to making sure this does not happen, and Google Analytics lets you do this in a reliable way. Having said that, URL shortener data does help in gauging total clicks, which is relevant in cases such as when someone else shared your URL online.
Overly Shortening your Links
Shrinking a URL has long stopped being the sole purpose of a link shortening service; there is a range of other benefits you should be aiming for on the side. While shorter is almost always more appealing when it comes to URL, taking it too far just saddles you with an ugly link.
For instance, when getting a domain for Homemade Pizza, you should prefer homepizza.xyz over hmmdepzza.xyz, or something else that is equally ridiculous. Compared to the latter, even full-length URL places you in a better position when a potential visitor sees the link. Even better, you could make the link more benefit driven, such as by including a hyphen-separated call to action after the slash (like buy-wood-fired-pizza).
Shortening an Already Shortened Link
Everyone who has gone on the internet remembers the frustration from clicking on a link, and having to wait several minutes for it to load into something resembling a website. Too often, this is caused by a double or triple redirect; other times, the site is simply slow.
When it is the former, the link is sending you to a second URL after the initial one, and then to another after that. All is well if this happens quickly, but there is no guarantee that things will play out that way. To stay on the safe side, make sure that the URL has not already been shortened in a similar way.
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