URL Shortener is a service to shrink any kinds of URL on the web that has only 5 to 8 characters. It will shortened any link yet it has the same address on the web. Aside from its look of simplicity, minimal and uniformity there are other reasons why you need to consider using URL Shortener.
Before I often wondered why some of my blogger friends use this service when promoting their own link on the social network. I also told myself that real URL of my post is better than a shorter link because it can already tell the idea of my post. But now I also had my own reason to use URL shortener and maybe you can pick up some of my reasons too.
Reasons to use URL Shortener:
First, it can sparks curiosity when sharing on the Social Media wherein I belong. The longer link that came from the original title of my post will blew it away but if I hide it, my followers will depend on the sentence that I use to describe the link. Below is my example:
- Guess who? http://goo.gl/APXFM
Or
So which one do you think is more appealing to my visitors? As expected you are more likely to click on the first where on the second link you won’t, because it was obvious that you know the answer already where Kanye West is in my title post.
Second, I hide the link of any affiliating site or any kind of earning sites where mostly friends and friends of friends don’t like to see, especially if they already know the site. As of my experience even Facebook don’t like their members to post affiliated link on the wall and the best thing to do is hide the link on a shortened URL.
The link is actually my blogpost for Bubblews wherein any views from around the world are consider as my income on the site. Of course many of us wanted to lose weight and anyone who saw my status will probably click on the link.
Third, it is very useful in twitter or any social network that only permits a minimum of characters only. Like in twitter that you can only use 140 and if your original link is too long how can you put a little description of your share link to attract visitors.
Below are some of the free tools that can shrink your URL:
1. goo.gl– so far this is the best URL shortener for me it’s free and it is easy to use, although I had to admit that some affiliate link were not converted here. It has also a features of statistics of how many click it has generated for the past hours, days, weeks, months and so on…
2. bit.ly – it has a sharing functionality which is good in building traffic.
3. tinyurl.com– not only it can shortened any URL it can also provide a custom alias for your link best for business or any entrepreneur. You can also shortened and hide affiliate link in tinyurl.
4. ow.ly– it is free and can shortened URL link, also it provide to use hootsuite to manage your social media sharing.