Link shortener for Twitter: how to pick the best one?
By Frank Vargas
Link shortener for Twitter: how to pick the best one?
Twitter is a great social media platform for sharing content in the form of the so-called “tweets”.
It’s used not only by regular users, but also content creators, such as digital marketers and advertising campaign specialists.
As for the latter, Twitter offers a lot of potential.
Data shows that advertisers could reach over 465 million users on Twitter in April 2022, placing this platform in the 14th place in Data Reportal’s ranking of the world’s most ‘active’ social media platforms.
Worldwide visits to Twitter.com from September 2021 to February 2022 source
Despite many users around the world, together with the awesome potential this platform gives to brands, Twitter has one serious disadvantage.
It’s the 280-character limit for Twitter posts.
The limit means that your tweets cannot have more than 280 characters, which can make it tough to share longer articles or links.
Something even more inconvenient is the way these characters are counted in a post.
While 1 letter equals 1 character, 1 emoji counts as 2. This makes it more challenging for people like social media managers to communicate their messages in a way they would wish to in a post.
One reliable way to get around this problem is using link shortening service for Twitter.
This way, you can share a long article without taking up too much space in your tweet.
What is a Twitter link shortener, why do you need one and how to pick the best one? The answer to all these questions can be found in this article.
What is Link Shortener for Twitter?
A link shortener is a service or a tool that takes a long URL and creates a shorter, easier-to-share link out of it.
It works by converting the original, long URL into a new, shorter one, using special technology. As a result, you get a link leading to the exact same destination on the Internet, but in a much more tweet-friendly form.
As a result, you do not have to worry about taking up too much space in your tweet for sharing a long article. What’s more, you have some space left to actually write something more rather than just paste the URL in your tweet. Thus, such a tool is really useful.
Why Use Link Shortener for Twitter?
There are several reasons as to why you might want to use a link shortener for your Twitter posts.
Next time you want to share a tweet with a link in it, be sure to keep in mind the following benefits of taking advantage of a link shortening tool for this purpose:
Save space with branded short links posted
The first and possibly most obvious benefit is connected to the tweet limit of 280 characters. Some links can really take up a lot of space, leaving little room for any more words in your tweet.
With a reliable link shortener for your Twitter, you will be able to make your links much shorter.
Thanks to this, you get a chance to make your posts more interesting as you can write more in them.
Get more clicks
Shortening tools for your links on Twitter make your links not only shorter, but also more interesting.
Think about it this way: most people are used to seeing long URLs. But whenever they see a short URL, it can immediately catch their attention since short links can be considered unique. All thanks to the way they look.
Because of this, your followers are more likely to click or tap on your links.
Shorter links also rank better in search results, thus allowing your page to come out earlier in search engine results over sites that don't have a short, descriptive URL.
According to Backlinko’s research, shorter URLs rank better than long URLs.
To find this out, they did extensive testing of 1 million Google search results.
The below graph is a representation of how Google rankings decline when URL length gets longer:
Track link performance
Moving on, using URL shortening tools is an awesome opportunity for you to track and analyze the performance of your URLs. Thanks to this, you can skip the spreadsheets and tedious note-taking tasks.
Some of the tracking metrics you should have access to include:
-
Browser visitors use when opening your URLs
Are your visitors using Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari? You can easily see this with link shortening tools like LinkDrip for example. -
Device type
Are your visitors on a desktop, tablet, mobile, TV or other smart devices? Your perfect link shortening tool for links in tweets will show you. -
Referrers
Find out where your links visitors are coming from and how many people clicked on a link at a specific source. -
Location
Spot where your visitors are located. All the way down to local city level. -
Links posted
Easily track your branded links: how many links you post, where and when.
None of it is possible with standard URLs. Because of this, URL shortening solutions are valuable tools to have.
Create effective branding and marketing
A link shortener can help you make branded, custom short URLs, which are highly valuable. The link can be customized to match your branding, marketing initiatives and ad campaigns.
Shorter links are also memorable links. Thus, they can help you create effective branding and marketing. In this case, shorter links are better than long URLs because they are easier to remember and share with others. They also give you a more professional, solid look.
How to Choose the Best Link Shortener for Twitter?
Now that you know what a link shortener is and why you might want to use one, let's look at how to choose the best one for Twitter.
Here are a few things to consider when choosing a link shortener for Twitter:
Ease of use
The first thing you should look at is whether a tool is easy to use. If you pick complicated software with tricky functions, you will struggle with using it.
With a reliable link shortening tool like LinkDrip for example, creating a short URL is extremely easy and quick. In fact, all it takes is just 3 steps:
- set up your account,
- create your first link,
- share and start tracking.
Be sure to properly research all your potential URL shorteners in advance.
For instance, you can do it by checking out the tool reviews on websites like G2 or Capterra or trying a free trial.
After the trial, you can ask yourself the following questions ot evaluate a tool:
- Am I happy with these link shortening services?
- Does the tool make it easy to share links?
- Can I post links directly from the tool?
- Is it possibe to shorten links quickly and without issues?
- Can the links be automatically shortened?
- Will I be able to track click through rates and blog entries?
- Is this URL shortener suitable for my company?
These questions can help you choose the best url shortener for your company.
You can also try speaking with a customer support agent and asking questions.
So as you can see, there’s a few options to research your potential choice. Do take advantage of them.
Link quality
Your shortened links should work properly and take people to the right place.
A solid link shortening tool for your posts will generate short, error-free URLs every single time.
When looking for a tool to shorten links, make sure you pick one that is not buggy. It would be a shame if your shortened URL link stopped working after some time.
Even though the average half-life duration for tweets in 2022 is just 24 minutes, people can come across your tweet anytime, even long after you posted it.
Performance tracking
If you're interested in tracking how your links are performing, look for a link shortener that offers this feature.
We recommend choosing a link shortening tool that will let you see things like:
- where on the Internet your visitors are coming from,
- what devices your visitors are using,
- what locations your visitors are from.
Once you get access to this type of information, it will be easy for you to monitor and adjust your marketing efforts accordingly for the maximum results.
Price
Last but not least, consider the price of a tool. Link shorteners vary in price, so choose one that fits your budget.
Firstly, think about what your budget is, meaning how much you’re willing to spend on your link shortening tool.
Next, do a little bit of research and get an idea of what the average subscription fees are. Look at the plans you’re interested in and check the pricing out at different competitors.
Why LinkDrip is the best URL shortener for Twitter
Are you curious to know what link URL shortener for Twitter you should use? We come to the rescue.
While there are many possible tools to choose from, our vote goes for LinkDrip - the best choice for shortened link generation.
LinkDrip is a solid link engagement and link shortening service offering features in areas like:
- Call to Action overlays
- Link analytics
- A/B testing
- Ad retargeting
Using LinkDrip, you will quickly shorten your links and share them, to then track their performance.
How can LinkDrip help you create more effective tweets with links?
Thanks to LinkDrip's well developed software for shortening links, you can instantly and effortlessly shorten and post links - whenever you want to. Just add the rest of the text to your tweet and voilà!
LinkDrip’s custom URL shortener is extremely intuitive and smooth - just how it should be. Our goal is to allow users to build better links for even better social media content, including Twitter posts.
Considering how many tweets are sent in just one second on Twitter every second, it’s vital to know how to distinguish yourself from others and create links that convert.
As for sharing links, the answer of course is LinkDrip - your next, improved way of sharing links.
So don’t hesitate and check it out today - the free trial is waiting for you to fall in love with LinkDrip's great functionality.
Get a Twitter Link Shortener To Shorten Links Today
As you saw in this article, link shortening tools are an awesome invention that can boost your Twitter content on many levels - visibility, saving space, analytics and branding.
We hope that now you know what link shorteners are, how they’re beneficial, as well as how to choose the best tool to shorten URLs.
When looking for your perfect link shortener, be sure to follow our criteria we shared with you. All ease of use, link quality, performance tracking and price play an important role.
So don’t waste your time and get a link shortening tool for the best shortened link experience on Twitter now. LinkDrip is more than ready to show you short URLs from an angle you haven’t discovered them from before.
Other than that, we hope you enjoyed this article from our blog and we wish you all the best with your URL shortening journey. It's time to shorten URLs like a pro!