In today’s digital age, where attention spans are short and competition is fierce, standing out from the crowd is crucial. Using branded short links can help you do just that. By incorporating your brand name or a relevant keyword into your links, you can reinforce your brand identity and make it easier for people to remember and recognize your content.
But that’s not all. Branded short links also offer a number of practical benefits, such as improved tracking and analytics, increased click-through rates, and enhanced security. Whether you’re a blogger, social media influencer, or business owner, using branded short links can help you streamline your online presence and achieve your goals.
So, if you’re looking to elevate your online presence and make a lasting impression on your audience, consider incorporating branded links into your digital strategy. In this blog post, we’ll explore the many benefits of using branded short links and provide tips for how to create and implement them effectively. Let’s dive in!
Also Read: How to Strengthen Your Social Media Presence Using Replug and ContentStudio
What are branded short links?
Branded short links, also known as custom short URLs, are shortened URLs that contain a brand name or a custom keyword, making them easily identifiable and memorable. These links can be used to promote your brand, track your marketing efforts, and improve your overall online presence.
A branded short link can be created by using a URL shortener tool like our own Replug, which allows you to create a custom URL that redirects to a longer, more complex URL.
By using a branded link, you can provide your audience with a link that is easy to remember and recognizable, which can lead to increased engagement and click-through rates.
Also Read: How to Shorten a link using a URL shortener?
Tracking links you care about is easy:
Branded short links can also be used to track the performance of your marketing campaigns. By creating a unique short link for each campaign, you can easily track the number of clicks, the geographic location of the clicks, and the time of day the clicks occurred. This information can be used to refine your marketing efforts and improve your overall ROI.
Here’s an example:
Let’s look at an example that will make the amazing technique clearer to you.
For example, you want to shorten a URL as seen below
Damn! That’s an awful URL.!!!
However, the best URL shortener can turn this ugly link into an attractive and exciting one. Now let’s see the magic of a URL shortener in the below image.
Now let’s dive into something even more amazing!
Also Read: Top 5 Paid URL Shorteners Worth Paying For!
5 Game-changing benefits of branded short links
You’re ready to take your online marketing efforts to the next level, aren’t you?
Utilize these game-changing benefits of branded links to improve the online presence of your brand.
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Increased brand recognition
Branded short links are a great way to promote your brand and increase brand recognition. For example, your brand name is “ABC Clothing”, and by using a branded short link like “abcclothing.link”, you can reinforce your brand name and message every time someone sees your link.
This can help build brand awareness and customer loyalty over time. In fact, according to a study, branded links can increase brand recognition by up to 39%.
Also Read: How To Build Brand Recognition using Short Links
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Improved click-through rates
Branded short links can also help improve your click-through rates (CTR) by making your links more visually appealing and trustworthy. For example, let’s say you are sending an email marketing campaign promoting a new product. If you use a long, generic link like “https://www.example.com/products/new-product-123”, it might look suspicious to some recipients and deter them from clicking on it.
However, if you use a branded short link like “yourbrand.link/newproduct”, it looks more professional and trustworthy. This can lead to higher CTRs and more conversions.
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Better tracking and analytics
Branded link services like Replug offer detailed analytics that allows you to track clicks, engagement, and other key metrics. This can help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions to improve your ROI.
For example, if you use a branded short link in a social media post, you can track how many clicks, likes, shares, and comments it received. This can help you identify what content is resonating with your audience and what isn’t.
Also Read: How to Build a Custom Audience through URL Tracking
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Enhanced social media presence
Branded short links can also help enhance your social media presence by making your links more visually appealing and shareable. For example, let’s say you are promoting a blog post on Twitter. If you use a long, generic link like
“https://www.example.com/blog/why-branded-short-links-are-important”
It takes up valuable character space and looks unprofessional. However, if you use a branded short link like
“yourbrand.link/brandedlink”
It looks more concise and visually appealing. This can lead to more engagement and shares, which can help increase your reach and followers.
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Increased security and trust
Branded short links can also help increase security and trust, as they provide protection against spam and phishing.
The way malicious links harm your PC or laptop, for which you may need some ideas to remove malware from your system. Similary, a Uhttp://www.cleanmymac.com/blog/new-mac-slowRL shortener can allow you to redirect 404 links to the right destinations. Thus, adding a layer of security.
For example, you receive an email from an unknown sender with a link to a website. If the link is long and unbranded, it might look suspicious and deter you from clicking on it.
However, if the link is short and branded, it looks more trustworthy and legitimate. This can help reduce the risk of clicking on malicious links and protect your personal information.
Also Read: Brand Consistency: Build Brand Consistency Using Branded Links
Do Link Shorteners Really Hurt SEO? No, They Do Not!
Shortened URLs can allow spammers to insert harmful links. 301 redirects, which can occur for very reasonable reasons, can cause indexing issues. This causes a lot of problems and relays a bad name for link shorteners.
Adding to the above, research by Jin Mun & Li in 2017, revealed that using URL shorteners can make a webpage easy to access for your target audience. Whereas, a long URL that has random characters does not reach the intended audience and cannot engage the user. Secondly, shortening the URL can protect you from phishing attacks as they can detect the original URL source.
Social networking websites usually put a ‘NoFollow’ tag in the links. This is done as a safety precaution. URL shorteners potentially benefit SEO, as the URL shorteners typically ignore no follow attributes. This proves to be a huge bonus for people who use social media as part of their marketing campaigns, or who just use them to share content.
According to several ranking specialists, using URL shorteners doesn’t lead to any negative impact on your SEO. As a matter of fact, Search Engines consider short URLs as any regular 301 redirects and they will thus act upon it.
Also Read: How to Create a SEO Friendly URL: Ultimate Tips
However, there are other positive impacts of URL shorteners on SEO. The key is to utilize the tools effectively.
- You can brand your links with the focus keyword in the URL.
- Secondly, a URL shortener can help in eliminating unnecessary elements such as stop words and punctuation from your links.
- It allows you to keep your URL and page titles consistent which positively impacts SEO.
Also Read: What Does HTTP 302 Code Mean For URL Shorteners?
Link Management With Replug
There are a lot of link-shortening tools available in the market today. However, Replug is one URL shortener that actually offers great value for money.
First and foremost, Replug is a link-shortening & tracking platform that allows you to create eye-catching custom URLs. Replug offers several other features you can also create social media Bio Links, URL tracking through custom URLs, QR Code generator, UTM, Tags, and much more. With Replug you can shorten links, and track and optimize them with catchy call-to-actions. It also provides the ability to add retargeting pixels paired with branded links and powerful analytics. There are several new features added to Replug that are briefly explained below.
Also Read: How to get to the link in the bio on Instagram?
Deep Linking
Deep linking allow users to instantly go to specific applications rather than wasting their time searching for themselves on the webpage. When it comes to mobile users, deep links increase overall engagement and conversion rates.
Also Read: A Quick Guide To Deep Linking & Its Benefits
Traffic Routing
Using the traffic routing feature, you can now target your audience with several filters such as location, device, browser, etc. You can also choose the IP address, time, and dates as well. Thus, allowing you to redirect users from various locations to your link.
Also Read: 5 Top Link Rotators: Convert More With Traffic Routing & A/B Testing
A/B Testing
A/B testing feature allows you to redirect a link to multiple destinations. Easily distribute the weightage and start testing up to 10 branded links at a time.
There are several other features that we have listed that you can learn more about.
If you are looking for a branded URL shortener with great value for money, then Replug is just for you.
Branded Links
With Replug, you can easily create branded links. Just put the brand name in front of the domain and tell the readers what the domain is actually about. Having your own short URL built around your brand identity can help increase conversion rates.
But how to manage these links? Don’t worry, Replug also helps you with that as it has a solution for branded link management.
Related: 9 Ways Brands can use Replug to ascend their Brand Recognition
Branded Link Management
The goal of creating a short branded URL is to engage more users with your brand. Ultimately, converting these users into customers.
But how to analyze these campaigns?
Branded Link Management is a solution that lets users manage their branded links easily with Replug URL shortener. Whether it’s a social profile or a website, track their performance easily. You can also create campaigns for multiple brands and analyze the progress of each campaign. Thus, making it easy to analyze and retarget ads.
How to Create Branded Short URL Links with Replug?
Creating branded short links using Replug is as simple as it can be. Login to your Replug account or sign up if you do not already have one.
The first thing you need to do is to create a brand. What is a brand you may ask? A brand is a unique identity for your call-to-action widget. To put it in simpler words, let’s say you have 5 websites, they are 5 unique identities for you, so these 5 unique identities are brands in Replug.
Get started by putting your website logo or your profile picture as a brand to convey your message effectively.
Also Read: Brand New Replug UI. Let Us Amaze You!!!
Steps to Follow To Create a Branded URL
Creating and using branded short Links was never this easy. It just takes a few simple and easy steps to create one.
Step 1
Log in to your account and navigate to the dashboard. Select your desired campaign and enter the URL that you want to optimize (you can add any UTM as well). Then click on create.
Step 2
Completed the above step… That’s great!
After clicking on creating a new screen will appear. Click the edit button where you can start customizing the URL link into a branded URL link.
Add tags and set other parameters that you want for your campaign. Now click on update and your branded link is live to share.
Register with Replug and start creating your own short links. Don’t worry! Replug offers a 14-day free trial. You can also schedule a meeting with our representative to learn more.
Now let’s recap again what we have learned.
Other Notable Link Management Tools
With Bitly, you can create a short domain name for custom link shortening and forward it on Twitter or Facebook.
Customize or personalize any link using T.LY. Get statistics on how many times your links have been viewed online by shortening URLs.
Clkim allows you to use your branded domain, retarget on click, and monetize with custom, responsive, full-page interstitial ads.
Use your own domain name to create branded, memorable, and pronounceable custom short links.
It is used to share ads and market them on a custom domain name directly from your Mac storage.No need to write long emails anymore. With Dropler you can show complicated, processes using screencasts and transfer files with a customized short link.
Tinny CC is a URL shortener platform that allows you to plug in your own short domain and then manage your whole brand from social media to product packaging.
Genius Link makes localizing, tracking, and managing smart links dead simple so you can earn more without added work.
It allows you to create your own branded short Links on your domain. You can easily manage links and view click statistics. If you need short links for different websites, you can manage many domains in your account. It provides an API for developers and a Google Chrome extension for a better experience.
We can use t2M as a URL shortener with Twitter, Facebook URL Shortener, and YouTube URLs Shortener. You will get a powerful dashboard that will make your work easier.
If you have programming skills and have an interest in running your own shortening service. Then get Polr, as you can run your own URL shortening service with this free open-source software.
Foxly provides URL-shortening services to marketers, advertisers, and brands. The purpose of Foxly is to help users achieve growth goals on their social websites across all marketing channels. Increase subscribers with short URLs for YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc.
Transform your long URLs into short and concise links with Toinsh. It also allows you to create landing pages with multiple links and gather valuable data insights. Other features of these tools include UTM Generator, Social Audit, and Hashtag analyzer.
Sniply is another URL-shortening tool that allows to the creation of short URLs, CTA, and tracking. Share links using Sniply on your social media channels, articles, newsletters, and much more. When it comes to the price, its price value is a bit high.
Yourls is an acronym for ‘your own URL shortener’. Similarly to Polr, it’s also an open-source link shortener. It allows the creation of links and provides analytics, Bookmarklets, etc.
Tiny.ie is a simple URL shortening tool for link shortening, branded domain, custom short links, real-time analytics, etc. It helps users short ugly URLs into attractive short links.
Also Read: 12 Best Bio Link Tools To Amp Up Your Marketing In 2023
FAQs
Which short link is best?
The best short link really depends on your specific needs and preferences. When choosing a short link service, you should consider factors such as ease of use, reliability, customization options, analytics, and pricing.
You should also ensure that the service you choose provides adequate security measures to protect your links from being misused or redirected to malicious websites. Some of the most popular short-link services include Replug, Bitly, and Rebrandly.
What is better than Bitly?
We recommend Replug, a tool that lets you create short, branded links with custom domains, track clicks, and conversions, and add call-to-action overlays. This can help increase click-through rates and drive more traffic to your website.
Additionally, Replug integrates with a variety of popular marketing tools, making it easy to manage and optimize your campaigns.
Do Replug links hurt SEO?
No, Branded Replug links do not directly hurt SEO. Using a URL shortener like Replug does not have a negative impact on your website’s search engine rankings. However, it’s important to keep in mind that if you use a URL shortener to mask spammy or low-quality links, this can negatively impact your SEO.
It’s always best to use URL shorteners ethically and responsibly and to ensure that the links you are shortening are relevant, high-quality, and add value to your content.
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