Companies present on the Internet are more and more numerous to regularly share URLs to establish their notoriety, to make discover their services or to make known their new products. In this context, the choice of the URL is essential.
The latter must not be too long, in order not to lose Internet users on the way! It is therefore important to give great importance to their writing.
Numerous tools now allow you to shorten and customize URLs: shorteners will allow you to transform page addresses in order to perfect your marketing strategy. What are the advantages of such changes and how to best customize the addresses of your online store?
What is a URL shortener?
To reduce the size of a URL as much as possible, there is a tool called the URL reducer, otherwise known as “shorteners”, which offer many advantages.
How to reduce a URL?
When setting up a new page on the Internet, it is necessary to give it a URL. Ideally, this one must respect certain codes to be well written:
It must include certain keywords;
It must include the tree structure of the site;
Its different words must be separated by the dash of the six;
It must not contain superfluous words, such as coordinating words, nor special characters or accents;
It should be as short as possible.
To obtain a shortened URL, it is also possible to use shorteners without affecting your overall analytics.
Definition of this online service
As its name suggests, the URL reducer is an ideal online tool that allows you to reduce the size of an address on websites to a maximum.
Its purpose? To make it easier to share the URL on different media, such as blog posts on social networks.
These shortened links also allow you to customize them with the keywords of your choice: typically, if an address is very long and refers to a blog post related to the holiday marketing strategy, the shorteners will give you the opportunity to change the link and add for example: “dropizi.la/strategie-marketing-fetes”.
Why shorten the URL?
There are several reasons why a company may want to reduce the URL of its pages. This action can be used to :
To fit the URL in question into a reduced space, when the number of characters is limited. This character limitation is the case on most social networks, except for Twitter which has its own internal URL reducer
To integrate relevant keywords, which will allow to give a maximum of relevant information in the shortened address
To highlight certain key elements, so that they appear directly in the link
To work on your brand image and give your addresses a more personalized look and a more professional use.
To be able to add a personalized URL in a specific space, such as a bio on social networks, and to be able to follow the precise analytics easily and see the number of clicks and views from this source.
The 7 best URL reducers of 2022
The need for URL reduction is such that many tools have been developed specifically for the Internet. Thus, the list of URL reducers is particularly vast. However, some of them are used more than others, because of their reliability.
Bitly
Bitly is an ideal URL reducer that was formerly known as bit.ly. This service was founded in 2008 and is based in New York. Particularly popular among web users, it generates about 600 million links per month. Of course, its main service is URL shortening. However, Bitly has other features.
This site provides tools to display statistics about the users following the generated links. It allows you to see the number of clicks for each link, as well as their proportions by country and by source site.
Using Bitly is a breeze. You just have to paste a link in the field located in the center of the screen. The site will automatically shorten it. Bitly invites you to create your free account on the site. This allows you to analyze the clicks and profitability of each of your addresses. All this data is provided in the form of a very intuitive and useful dashboard for digital marketing.
TinyURL
TinyURL is another ideal URL reduction service that was founded by Kevin Gilbertson, a developer by profession. He launched the tool in January 2002. So he appears as a precursor in his field.
The site offers a text dialog box that allows you to enter a long URL. This tool is totally free and allows to obtain aliases much more convenient to share, by instant messaging or on most social networks. Again, the use of this tool is particularly simple and intuitive. You just have to paste your link to be shortened in the field provided for this purpose. TinyURL takes care of the rest!
The resulting link looks like a short combination of letters and numbers. Nevertheless, the user has the possibility to modify it to make it more readable and easier to remember. If you choose an alias that is already in use, the site will tell you. Indeed, each of them can be used only once.
For your convenience, this tool has a preview function, which allows you to see your new, smaller web address with a single click.
Rebrandly
Rebrandly is the name of the URL reducer that we commonly use at WiziShop. More concretely, it is a subsidiary of ClickMeter, a company that offers a whole set of professional analysis tools for the Web. Rebrandly was founded in 2005 and is now aimed at all those who need to create shorter links, whether you are an individual or a company.
Upon creating a user account, the site prompts you to specify a domain or sub-domain name you already own. It then generates a new custom value for that URL.
To date, Rebrandly is considered one of the easiest ways to create, share and manage sponsored links. Make your links more pronounceable, memorable and fully customizable! Did you know: it can increase your click-through rate by up to 39% compared to generic addresses.
Tiny.cc
Tiny.cc is one of the most feature-rich software reducers. It has more than 100 different options, including the ability to split URLs by category. With it, you can use features such as monitoring, redirects, tracking, notifications and development.
Tiny.cc boasts of increasing the click rate of its shortened URLs by 34% on average! This is a real bargain not to be missed.
Through its URL reduction tool, this shortener helps increase user trust and brand awareness. It is about offering a better recognition of the company on the Web.
This URL reducer allows you to get a personalized and more common domain name in just a few clicks. It immediately gives a more professional look to your web addresses.
However, you should know that this is a paying tool, with prices starting at nine euros per month.
This comprehensive shortener offers a wide range of customization options. It also allows you to monitor content or promote certain content.
Given its great flexibility and wide range of possibilities, it is one of the most used tools in content marketing.
adf.ly
adf.ly is a very different platform from the other tools mentioned above. Again, it is primarily a company that provides a URL shortening tool. With it, your long URLs become shorter and more memorable addresses. However, it is also an advertising company that monetizes each of your links.
More concretely, every time a visitor to your Facebook, Twitter or other social networks profile clicks on a URL shortened by adf.ly, the company earns you cents. The amount of money earned depends on the geographical location of each visitor who clicks on the link.
Best of all, the minimum payout to get a transfer from the site is only five dollars. Its registration process is very simple. Its interface is very easy to use. adf.ly even has a referral system!
vu.fr
The previous reducers were not based in France. However, you should know that there are French solutions to shorten your URLs. Of course, they are not always as efficient as the previous tools. However, their functionalities are often more than sufficient to obtain personalized addresses.
vu.fr is an excellent address to get short links. Moreover, this tool integrates a Chrome extension that allows you to obtain statistical follow-ups.
Another advantage: vu.fr is a totally free and ad-free tool. Its interface is particularly well done. A large white banner allows you to paste your URL to shorten. The site takes care of the rest! With vu.fr, the possibilities are endless. The site also allows you to measure the data of your URLs in order to optimize their performance and to observe the performance of each of your marketing campaigns.
With vu.co.uk, target your users based on their location and the devices they use. Create a personalized landing page to promote your products and services. And use vu.co.uk’s powerful API to create your own custom applications. Little by little, the site continues to expand its services to meet all your marketing needs.
bzh.me
bzh.me is the name of another French shortener. To tell you the truth, he is even from Brittany! Moreover, he is not a little proud of his origins and displays them many times on his page!
This tool displays a large banner that allows you to paste a long URL to be shortened, at the top of its page. To this, it adds several other features. First of all, the company has a comprehensive analytics tool that allows you to track a whole bunch of different data by URL. The statistics obtained are gathered in the form of a powerful dashboard. This allows you to create sets, manage your start pages and all your parameters.
Links created by bzh.me can be geo-targeted, which is a great help to increase your conversion. They can also be shared in one click, directly through the site dashboard.
The URL reducer is now considered a must-have web tool, especially for social networkers. If you want to communicate about your company, your services or your new products, you can’t escape it! It is an indispensable tool in terms of digital marketing. Thanks to them, save your characters and make your posts more impactful!