We usually lose focus within eight seconds or fewer. According to recent studies, our attention span is becoming even shorter than it used to be. Customers today have little patience for anything.

That’s why vanity URLs are essential for businesses to use in marketing campaigns. Before you lose their interest, vanity URLs ensure buyers quickly reach your campaign URLs and view your material or message.

If you’ve never heard of vanity URLs, don’t worry, you’re in the right place. This blog explains them and their benefits.

What is a Vanity URL?

It is a custom, branded URL that is short and easy to remember. These URLs are used primarily in social media marketing and advertising so people can easily remember them.

Vanity URLs are essential for several reasons. They help build brand recognition and awareness. By consistently using a branded vanity URL, companies can help to reinforce their brand identity and make it easier for people to find them online.

Vanity URLs for SEO purposes are easier for search engines to crawl and index. It can help improve a website’s search engine rankings. Additionally, if a vanity URL contains relevant keywords or phrases, it can improve the page’s relevance for those keywords.

What are the Benefits of Vanity URLs?

There are several advantages listed below.

  • Easier to remember- Have you ever given someone a website recommendation but they’re too lazy to Google it? Even worse, have you ever seen anything interesting online but can’t find the perfect keyword phrase to make it appear in search results? 

Potential website visitors don’t quit until they reach your website if the URL is simple to remember. Furthermore, it has a far more appealing approach. This explains the popularity of automation tools to create vanity URLs. 

  • Builds more trust- A vanity URL can help build trust in several ways.
  • Professionalism: A vanity URL gives the impression that an individual or organization is professional and takes its online presence seriously. It also shows that they have taken the time to create a personalized URL, which can enhance their credibility.
  • Branding: By using a recognizable name or phrase in a vanity URL, an individual or organization can strengthen its branding efforts. This can help establish a consistent identity across multiple platforms and make it easier for customers to find them online.
  • Memorability: A vanity URL is typically shorter and easier to remember than a longer, more complex one. This can help ensure that people remember the web address and can find the website or social media profile again.
  • Security: A vanity URL can also help enhance security and prevent phishing attacks. Using a recognizable and trusted name or phrase in the URL ensures that users access the correct website. This helps them not fall prey to scams or fraudulent websites.
  • Easier to share- A customized short link is much simpler to distribute on social media than a long string of obscure characters. Also, a vanity URL is far easier for users to understand than a large, complicated one that makes no sense.

Consider how tough it would be to recall and distribute a long string of random numbers and letters. Conversely, more relevant keywords are shorter, clearer, and more distinct. Vanity URLs help guide visitors to web pages.

  • Simple to use- Vanity URLs’ ease of use outweighs their ease of sharing by a wide margin. A vanity URL has several advantages for marketers, especially when posting material on social media or other platforms where the word count is constrained.

You can also keep track of your users’ actions by employing a custom URL. You may have observed that many social media platforms have tools to monitor user behavior. Whenever someone clicks a link, it collects valuable data.

  • Enables online and offline sharing- People can find your website by various means. You don’t have to be online to know about a website. Vanity URLs can empower sharing your web page online and offline.
  • Online sharing: When sharing links on social media, email, or messaging platforms, a vanity URL can be more professional-looking. It can also help to reinforce a brand or product name, making it more memorable to potential customers.
  • Offline sharing: In traditional marketing and advertising, you can display vanity URLs on physical materials such as business cards, brochures, billboards, and posters. Businesses can drive traffic to their website or landing page by providing a memorable and easy-to-type URL. 
  • Tracking and analytics: You can track clicks and engagement with online marketing campaigns. By using unique vanity URLs for different campaigns or channels, businesses can measure the effectiveness of each campaign and optimize their marketing efforts accordingly.

How does vanity URL impact SEO?

Short-length URLs rank higher on Google SERP as compared to lengthy URLs. One of the reasons for the high click-through rate can be the content’s simplicity, recall value, and optimization. 

Including keywords in the URL can also increase the click-through rate. The effect might be modest but substantial. It is crucial to select keywords that are pertinent to your brand or product. 

Even though you might consider these modifications insignificant, they sometimes have a positive impact. Focusing on keyword research can help your business more than you think. When you add a 301 Redirect to your link, you may keep the inherent ranking power and transfer it to the new URL.

How to create a vanity URL?

If you do it all by yourself, the technical procedure of making vanity URLs can be challenging. This may result in frustrating and expensive errors that jeopardize your marketing initiatives. 

There are several automation tools available that can help you create vanity URLs quickly and easily.

Here’s how to go about it:

  1. Choose an automation tool: There are many automation tools available, such as Bitly, Rebrandly, and TinyURL. Choose the one that suits your needs and sign up for an account.
  1. Enter the original URL: Enter the URL you want to turn into a vanity URL. This could be a link to your website, a specific page, or a social media profile.
  1. Customize the URL: Customize the vanity URL to something shorter and more memorable. This could be your brand name, a keyword, or anything easy to remember and relevant to your content.

Conclusion

While customizing your URL is essential for your online visibility, customizing content is equally important. Creating vanity URLs is just a step towards increasing your online presence, but you need to move towards marketing automation for complete growth. 

Since social media is a critical part of marketing, automation tools can make your tasks easier and more effective. 

Social media automation tools like Practina are a complete marketing solution for every business. 

Just download the Practina app or book a demo to learn more about this all-in-one social media marketing tool.