How to shorten URL adress?

[JonsonSwartz]

hi,
in my business Facebook page I have my website address. I want to track how many people arriving through this URL address to my site. I want to use URL builder but the final URL is too long and not pretty. I thought about using bitly.com but I need that the address on my page will contain the name of my brand.

any ideas hot to shorten the URL address and still be able to track the data?

thank you all.

[BlueprintMarketing]

I agree 100% with Erica

that's what I was trying to explain to my 1st post. That is going to have to come up with a different domain regardless of whether or not you shorten it or simply choose a different TLD

it should be noted though that only bit.ly enterprise & AWE.SM are capable of allowing a person to create a unique short domain and creating a name after the/of your choice there may be another tool out there that can do it however to the best of my knowledge.

Bit.ly's Personal Edition will allow you To create a unique extension only if  no one else on all of bit.ly has chosen that ending. Chances are they have though, and it's wise to go with tool that will create a short domain that is capable of making your brand look good.

the 1st answer does still answer your question. It's what I would do and what I have done that's why referenced the bseo.co link because I can to exactly what Erica stated  save space on social networks and create my own short domain that redirects to my homepage if it does not have a unique URL it needs to 301 redirect

I hope this clears everything up.

Thomas

[EricaMcGillivray]

I also suggest using a service like bit.ly for shortening URLs & grabbing your own custom, even shorter domain. At Moz, we have mz.cm, which lets us get even smaller on Twitter and the link.

Any traffic coming into your site, you can track on GA. You probably want to set up custom tags and do some filters for what campaigns you're running.

At their basics, URL shortners are a 301 redirect. So if you really wanted to do the extra work, you could have a 301 redirect of say http://example.com/awesome to http://example.com/mysiteisrad/everyonelovesit/youarecool. It's just easier to use a 3rd party -- and since you own the domain and are pointing the traffic to the site you own, you can track it in GA -- like bit.ly to do the heavy lifting for you.

[BlueprintMarketing]

You can do that using http://totally.awe.sm/ , bit.ly pro or Bilty free if you don't mind not having control of what appears after the /  you will need different TLD and the same name for your domain. if example.com is your brand domain then example.co is your shared domain.

I would recommend against using your websites domain name to create a lot of shared links that will not be part of your website. Even if they will look like example.com/fbshare or example.com/679a43054

You will need a new domain of your choice of course.

Sorry if I was not as clear in the beginning.

I misread your question.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[BlueprintMarketing]

Hi Joni,

What Vadim has said is true. You can use it for either platform really any platform that shortens links.

Use this tool to build the URL I am a huge fan of Kiss Metrics however that does not mean that you have to use them in order to find this article useful.

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-use-utm-parameters/

&

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/v2/campaigns#google-play-url-builder

Then run whatever you build through the http://totally.awe.sm/ shortener or URL shortener of your choice.

Sincerely,

Thomas

[vmialik]

Hi Joni,

This guide should help you setup up bit.ly or any other shortening service to be tracked in Google Analytics:

Guide

Hope this is what you were looking for

[JonsonSwartz]

thank you for your answer. maybe I missed something but I don't think that it answered my question.

it doesn't matter where I put my link, I want to be able to tag the link with google URL builder and than to shorten the address in a way that will include my domain name.

I want to track the data from google analytics and not from other platforms

[BlueprintMarketing]

Yes use http://totally.awe.sm/

They are by far the best in my opinion. Bitly Does offer a enterprise version that I believe starts at $900 a month

http://blog.awe.sm/2013/07/16/now-everyone-can-be-awe-sm

http://totally.awe.sm/platform/

you're looking to shorten a URL so it represents your brand and allow for you to control what comes after the / along with having a generally good looking URL.?

Check out this custom short URL of mine running on AWE.SM I created it so it should bring you right back to this page

http://bseo.co/f09

so you are aware you can create a custom short domain for free using Bitly however your ability to track along with your ability to create a URL with less than 7 characters after the / or a custom name after the / would be taken away completely.

If I can make a recommendation as to how to find the perfect short URL check out https://domai.nr/

also remember certain registrars are not going to allow you to use certain TLD's for instance Italy has .it

they do not allow anyone that is not a citizen of the EU to registrar that domain. So my strongest recommendation is to use a .co if available obviously you may find something that works perfectly for you. However check out the TLD as some are under different regulations that will make your stomach turn.

I purchased a 3 letter domain that ended in.TK unaware that .TK is a TLD that is given away for free in certain circumstances, but only for a certain amount of clicks. So you can either purchase it for an extremely high amount or you can build your links be ruined.

name.com It is a good choice so is http://www.enom.com/

Namecheap.com is excellent as well and you can get a very good discount using Moz.com/perks

I hope this is been of help,

Thomas