Cutting URLs down to size

Cumbersome URLs are not only a challenge for marketers to remember, but rest assured the public at large isn’t going to remember them either. So what’s a marketer to do? A vanity URL , if you remember, is a unique web address that can be branded and used in marketing executions.  The main reason people use these types of URLs is to facilitate Internet traffic flow by helping to find a specific domain that may be difficult to remember.

Some of the reasons brands use this approach include:

1. To increase traffic, usage and sharing with URL specifically named to support a marketing campaign
2. To build trust by leveraging familiar terms
3. Facilitate social sharing (radio, tv, print and magazines)
4. Help boost your SEO efforts with additional inbound/outbound traffic

In recent years, “URL Shorteners” have also become a popular way to create a vanity URL. Shortening the URL is useful for easier memorability as well as when you have a strict limit on character counts, such as Twitter. There are many services out there that can shorten any URL and track the clicks on it, in fact, you can even register your own branded shortener in some cases. Be careful when using these offline though as some of them are case sensitive.

Whether you want to drive traffic to your website or your social media channels, consider the use of vanity URLs to increase your performance and remain top of mind.