These are without a doubt good times for internet and especially for companies which are engaged in online start-ups OR SMEs which are enhancing their operations, while including internet in their operational value chain.
Communicating with customers online!
Since the very beginning the only way to send URL's to drive customers to click on them and reach to a particular website/ web page online is by copying the complete URL of the site and sending it across.
The Issue
These URL's could be very long at times. Example: if you have a blog post to share, many a times it is a long string of text which looks a little ugly while you are sending it across to your customers/ target audience.
The Traffic Statistics: follow-up
Another major issue with this approach is the follow-up that you need to do, of the fact that how many customers actually clicked your URL and for how much time did they land on your intended page etc. Such statistics actually go a long way in helping you understand the success of your message/ campaign. Generally such details can be accessed through tools like Google Analytics.
When keeping it short: tweets
Another major trend online is to convey your message in as short words as possible. Example, the hugely popular 140 character messaging system twitter. If your URL's are longer than your message, this mode/ medium of communication might never be leveraged by your business.
URL Shorteners: what are these?
This Wikipedia article, precisely captures what URL shorteners are: "URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter in length and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using an HTTP Redirect on a domain name that is short, which links to the web page that has a long URL. For example, the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening can be shortened to http://bit.ly/urlwiki. This is especially convenient for messaging technologies such as Twitter, which severely limit the number of characters that may be used in a message. Short URLs allow otherwise long web addresses to be referred to in a tweet. In November 2009, the shortened links on one URL shortening service were accessed 2.1 billion times."
Suggestive tool: Bit.ly
One of the early entrants into this domain has been Bit.ly. One of the easiest and interesting online tools to help with URL shortening.
Communicating with customers online!
Since the very beginning the only way to send URL's to drive customers to click on them and reach to a particular website/ web page online is by copying the complete URL of the site and sending it across.
The Issue
These URL's could be very long at times. Example: if you have a blog post to share, many a times it is a long string of text which looks a little ugly while you are sending it across to your customers/ target audience.
The Traffic Statistics: follow-up
Another major issue with this approach is the follow-up that you need to do, of the fact that how many customers actually clicked your URL and for how much time did they land on your intended page etc. Such statistics actually go a long way in helping you understand the success of your message/ campaign. Generally such details can be accessed through tools like Google Analytics.
When keeping it short: tweets
Another major trend online is to convey your message in as short words as possible. Example, the hugely popular 140 character messaging system twitter. If your URL's are longer than your message, this mode/ medium of communication might never be leveraged by your business.
URL Shorteners: what are these?
This Wikipedia article, precisely captures what URL shorteners are: "URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter in length and still direct to the required page. This is achieved by using an HTTP Redirect on a domain name that is short, which links to the web page that has a long URL. For example, the URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening can be shortened to http://bit.ly/urlwiki. This is especially convenient for messaging technologies such as Twitter, which severely limit the number of characters that may be used in a message. Short URLs allow otherwise long web addresses to be referred to in a tweet. In November 2009, the shortened links on one URL shortening service were accessed 2.1 billion times."
Suggestive tool: Bit.ly
One of the early entrants into this domain has been Bit.ly. One of the easiest and interesting online tools to help with URL shortening.
One of the easiest tools to use. All you need to do is, submit your long URL to any piece of content online and click on Shorten and Bit.ly will provide you with a URL which is far smaller as compared to your original URL and will actually re-direct to your original URL.
Eg: the URL: http://indiamartknowledge.blogspot.com/2011/04/create-magazine-out-of-your-business.html
Upon shortening has been converted into: http://bit.ly/fC5yiy
But is it all about this? Not really, when you sign in to this tool, you will actually be able to do much more with the internal dashboard:
One of the crucial most features in Bit.ly is statistics. It provides you a fairly detailed view of the traffic which your URL's are garnering.
You can also use Bit.ly as a default URL shortener with various online tools you use as twitter, facebook etc. Though there are many other such services available online and many social networks have their own versions of such shorteners which can be used.
Team IndiaMART is committed to create an ecosystem to help the SMEs grow. To know more about how you can leverage the internet for your emerging enterprise, drop in a comment to this post and our team of experts will get back to you!
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