Stop using link shorteners

I was driving when I heard it on the radio. 

“To date, the fundraiser has reached RM8400. Go to Bit.ly/s…”

These days, shortlinks are everywhere. And everyone seems to use them. 

• Bit.ly
• Tinyurl 
• Shorturl

Link shorteners are mostly a bad idea. Yes, they are created for a reason. To make things convenient. So that it’s easier to share a link over the radio. So it’s shorter in an ad. So we can track clicks. 

But there are problems too. 

1. Link shorteners are decentralized. If a shortening service goes out of business, millions of links go kaput. 
2. Link shorteners have no trust. You can’t see where the link goes. So your users are less likely to click on them. 

See what I mean? 

Scammers love using shortlinks for a reason too.

The alternative is to simply use a full URL. We’re no longer living during the time when Twitter had a 140-character limit, which was why link shorteners came up in the first place. 

If you really have to use a link shortener because you’d want to put it on a poster or something, then use a branded link shortener with your brand name. At Daily CMO, we use Pretty Links on WordPress to shorten links if we have to. 

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Brand trust

The marketplace has been burned and cheated by scammers. No wonder everyone is a skeptic these days. The smartest brands focus on building a brand and creating trust. 

One way to build trust is to start an email newsletter. You don’t have to send daily emails. Even sending an email bi-weekly is better than not sending at all. 

But what do you send in these emails? How do you even get your first subscribers? 

We made an online course to help you with that. Join Sub100 free here.