Links, links everywhere…

Short links, long links, simple links, complex links.

We use them all day long, but we also share them all the time with friends, family, customers, colleagues and the world at large.

Most times we share them as they are – as long as the job gets done then who cares?

Well, there’s a lot more to sharing a link than meets the eye.

Copy/paste a link and it works.  The user gets to the destination, but you miss out on all the information captured by that click.  Sharing links, especially short links, has so much more to offer.

Now-Click can show you how your brand can get that extra benefit from every click and how to manage it.

To find out how short links will boost your brand and grow your business, here’s what makes them useful.

Link Shortening basics

Links we want to share are usually much more complex than the basic www.think-of-a-brand.com top level url.

They typically contain a long and complex string of characters to get to a specific page of a website, or a selected product page or article out of thousands.  And that ’page’ detail is then also followed by additional information relating to the referrer or marketing campaign details, etc. 

How many times have we wished we could have a short version of that long link that would fit neatly into a document or a tweet?

Digital marketers, small business owners, or enterprise marketers should use short version of those long links – and preferably customize and brand them - to remain on-message. 

When sharing information, the last thing we want is for the links to distract the reader or get them thinking of other brands.

The solution to this is link shortening.

With link shortening, you can convert a long link you wish to share:

https://www.foodynewsusa.com/fruit-and-vegetables/fruit/news/2022/11/05/amazed-man-dicovers-some-fruit-grows-on-trees.html

to short links like these:

https://now-click.me/3Rhmp or even https://go.foodynewsusa.com/fruit-trees.

Short links are much easier for the users they are shared with, while also building brand awareness.

Plus behind the scenes they provide multiple benefits to the sharer – with detailed tracking and marketing information available to monitor and improve desired results.

What extra?

Link shortening provides multiple ways to enhance your brand or grow your business.

With simple short links a digital marketer running a campaign can check the number of clicks a certain ad or post generates.  Additionally, they can see where in the world (country or city) the clicks are from, or which platforms (Windows, iPhone, etc) or browsers the clicks are from.  This helps to target campaigns effectively.

Similarly, a social media marketer wanting to track the performance of links can do so per platform and adjust their campaigns accordingly.

There are numerous imaginative ways to use short links to grow a brand and business through the simple act of sharing web links.

What are the benefits of shortening links?

1) Short links are pleasing to the eye

Long and complex website links just don’t look good.

They take up an inordinate amount of space and detract from the message the main text is trying to convey. They force the reader’s eyes to skip forward and get distracted.  There are also so many characters in long links that the brand impact of the link is lost. 

With Now-Click short urls the context and the branding get conserved.

2) Short links are memorable

Few, if any, people can remember and recite a long url, especially if it is just a jumble of letters, numbers and special characters.  With a link shortener like Now-Click the link is short, clear and relevant, making it much more memorable.

3) Short links enable tracking

By using short links content creators can see how people react to each link.

The statistics available includes when the links were clicked, which city or country the user was in, their device/operating system/browser, language, referrer, tracking pixel, etc.  This is incredibly valuable – marketers can quickly see what works per geography, platform, targeting and conversions to optimize marketing campaigns.

4) Short links save space

Pasting a long link into an article or document uses up a lot of space and messes with the formatting and readability.  It is not only unsightly, but makes the document difficult to scan or read.

Long links in bios, on a business card, in a Tweet, WhatsApp or SMS simply use up too much space and characters.

Short links allow users to create more readable, punchy content that gets the message across and uses the minimum real estate that is available.

Relevant content wins every time.

5) Short links are versatile

Now-Click short links can be used to create relevant and perpetual online and offline experiences.

Unlike a long link that has been published, the destination of a short link can be changed ‘behind the scenes’.  So a short link to the ‘latest’ blog post or this month's special offer will always point at the relevant url. 

Short links remain relevant forever. So do their QR equivalents for use off-line.

What next?

Now-Click link shortening works well for casual users, try the FREE plan. 

But Now-Click becomes the powertool in the marketer’s toolkit, combining ease of use with amazing versatility and powerful tracking and analysis capabilities. 

Select the plan that suits your current needs and grow from there.