There are multiple reason why YOU Should be using a redirect script.
If you are creating links to utilize online or off (think business cards) there are multiple reasons to use a redirect script. Let's take a look at some of those reason here.
Ugly, long links just don't work very well.
I was talking to a customer the other day who also happens to sell products from her website. She mentioned that she hated being an affiliate because she didn't want those long ugly links on her website.
I can understand her point, but I wouldn't let that stop me from being an affiliate. You can take a long ugly link like this: http://someaffiliateprogram.com/43127ugly76352affiliate876521link??? and make it into a pretty link like this:
http://ScottRecommneds.com/this
Which of those two would you rather click on?
With the redirect script by Jason and Wil, you can take a big long ugly link and make it into a short, concise and appealing link. You kind of want to know what Scott is recommending, don't you?
That's one reason why you would want to have redirects like that on your site.
You Can Make Changes When Needed
One of the best parts about having such an ability to create redirects is that you may have a link that needs to be changed. Perhaps you were directing people to one merchant's website over a long period of time and you were generating some income from those links.
Suddenly, the merchant changes their affiliate program to something else and all of the previous links suddenly became invalid. Wouldn't it be great to have an easy way to go to one central location and make that change one time instead of tracking down the 100s of places you put that link and trying to change them all (if you even could change them)?
That would mean a lot of work and / or one entire income stream going away over night!
What if that merchant went out of business and you wanted to promote a different merchant who had a similar product? Again, that's a lot of work Or the process can be very simple.
How simple? It could be as easy as logging into one simple location and making a quick update. That is a much more elegant way to change 100s of links at one time rather than trying to go track them all down and change them manually, isn't it?
You can save a lot of time, effort and frustration. Time has value too. You don't want to waste it.
Why This Is Better Than Free Services
You can probably think of a few url shortening services. Some of them even offer tracking. (More on that in a moment).
The problem with free URL shortening services is that you can lose that link if the service decides to change it on you or if the service goes out of business. What if you spent 5 years creating links to go through that service? That could be a HUGE loss to you financially.
But, what if you hosted a shortening service on your own domain? You own that domain. You can control what happens there. You are not at the mercy of some third party who could disappear over night or decide they would like to eliminate or change where your link ends up!
This is one cool reason that Jason and Wills' script is worth checking out.
Tracking Clicks
When you are trying to market products or services online, it sure is helpful to have as much Intel as you can possibly get. Tracking the number of clicks to any given link can provide insight.
For example, lets say you had a webpage that was converting visitors to sales very well. However, you have several links to your checkout cart or to your merchant's checkout cart (if you are an affiliate). You know your page converts well, but you aren't sure why.
You can use your redirect script, to help you figure out which link is getting the most clicks. Do you think intel like that could help you tweak your conversions even further?
There are just some of the reasons why you should have your own self-hosted URL shortener (redirect script). You may have already thought of some more yourself!
Read More About Jason and Wil's Redirect Script Now.
Sincerely,
If you want more valuable online marketing tips and tools, sign up here to get them:
No comments :
Post a Comment