Shortening a URL is a good idea in several situations. By shortening a URL, for example, you make your website a lot clearer. A shortened URL is also useful for a QR code and for print media. How to shorten a URL, we would like to discuss in this article!
Why shorten a URL?
When Twitter became incredibly popular a few years ago, the shortened URLs also became very popular. On Twitter at the time, a tweet had a maximum of 140 characters, so the URLs should be drawn up as short as possible.
However, that’s not the only reason why many people shorten a URL. We have listed the most important reasons for you:
- Ideal for Twitter or in an SMS: on both Twitter and SMS messages it is important to keep the text as short as possible. You do that by shortening the URL.
- Handy in print media: for example, do you want to publish your own catalogue? If you start using long URLs in this catalog, the catalog will quickly become cluttered. You can prevent that by also working with a URL shortener in print media.
- Handy with QR codes: are you currently using QR codes? The shorter the URL, the better the QR code is more readable. It is therefore wise to shorten the URL for your QR codes as well.
- Handy on Instagram: also on Instagram you see more and more the shortened URLs come to the fore. Especially in the Instagram Stories it is so nice to use short URLs.
Can you also use the shortening of URLs on your own website? Well, that’s basically what it comes down to. However, the way you do this is different from the above situations. If you are going to work on the optimization of your website, you should make the URLs as short as possible. If the URLs are short and clear, this provides added value for both Google and your visitors. So definitely adjust the URLs on your website, but you can’t use a URL shortener for this.
Are you interested in shortening URLs yourself? Then it is good to know that you can do this in several ways. We would like to discuss the three best ways in detail below. Make a comparison between these ways and decide how you want to shorten your own URLs.
Bit.ly
As far as we are concerned, this is one of the best link shorteners. This is not only one of the best options, but is also one of the oldest. Bit.ly was actually the company that started shortening URLs. The team of Bit.ly came up with a unique technique for this, which is still infallible to this day.
With Bit.ly, the convenience is immediately noticeable. For example, this tool has already been incorporated into some other tools, such as Tweetdeck and Buffer. If you want to schedule social media posts via these tools, you also use Bit.ly.
Furthermore, it is nice that you do not necessarily need an account for Bit.ly. You can – without an account – shorten the button as a URL within a few presses. This is not only easy, but also fast.
Would you like to work a page you visit in a shortened URL? That’s possible with the extension for Chrome. Install this extension in Google Chrome and you’ll always be using Bit.ly.
An additional advantage: Bit.ly uses the 301 redirect. If there were no question of this 301 redirect, this would be at the expense of the findability of your website. So it’s a big plus that Bit.ly automatically processes this when shortening the URLs.
All in all, we advise you to use Bit.ly. We also recommend that you create an account. If you have created an account, you enjoy three advantages:
- You can associate certain tags with the shortened URL. Thanks to these tags, you can easily find the shortened URL later.
- The statistics are kept up to date. Via your Bit.ly account you can see how often the link is clicked.
- You can customize the link as you wish. This relates to the part after bit.ly/….. By customizing this part to your liking, you make the shortened URL a lot more personal.
Bit.do
Would you like to make shortening a URL as easy as possible? Then we recommend Bit.do. With this service you do not have to create an account, so you can shorten a link very quickly.
Basically, Bit.do is free, but you can also opt for a paid variant. If you choose the paid variant, you enjoy a very important advantage. With the paid variant it is possible to create shortened links from your own domain name. In that case, we would not use ‘bit.do/la312d’, but ‘wordpressonderhoud.nl/artikel.
In our opinion, Bit.do is a great way to shorten URLs. The design and such of the website is not sublime, but you have to look through it. The possibilities of this link shortener are very nice.
Is.gd
Finally, we also recommend Is.gd. This is a simple link shortener that allows you to quickly shorten a URL. All you have to do is enter the URL in question. Then click on ‘Shorten’ and you will immediately have access to a shortened URL.
Would you like to have more options at your disposal? Then you can click on ‘Further options’. In addition, you can enter a description for the shortened link. With an account it is also possible to keep statistics.
Also with this tool you enjoy the automatic 301 redirect. As we indicated earlier in this article, this is very desirable with regard to the optimization of your website.
Conclusion
Would you like to shorten your URLs? Then it is best to choose Bit.ly, Bit.do or Is.gd. As far as we are concerned, these are the best link shorteners. Are you just unable to use these tools? Or do you run into another problem on your (WordPress) website? Regardless of what the problem is, we are happy to help you with this. The link shorteners and WordPress simply don’t know a secret for us anymore.
Would you like to use our services? Fill in our contact form, start a live chat via our website or call us on 030 20 74 288. In any case, we are happy to assist you. We are ready for you to shorten URLs, but also for all other challenges / problems you encounter!
