Super-complex, overwhelming links aren’t a good look.
Using such long links will only make your website look unprofessional and unorganized. Fortunately, we have the perfect tool to let you solve this issue, which will also indirectly help you:
- Increase trust. People don’t trust long URLs since they look suspicious.
- Improve engagement. On most social media sites, adding long URLs is not possible.
Here’s how you can achieve such benefits in less than five minutes.
Note: If you haven’t already, install & activate the ClickWhale plugin.
2. Add Your Long Link #
Now it’s time to choose a link you want to shorten and customize.
We highly recommend shortening and customizing every link you share with your audience, whether on social media or anywhere else.
After you choose a link you want to shorten, head over to your WordPress dashboard, select the ClickWhale plugin, and click on ‘Add New’.
3. Create a Redirect #
You will see a menu for customizing and shortening your links:
In case you’re unfamiliar with some of these fields, here is a bit more information about them.
- Title. The name of your link (just for your own use, but really helpful for finding it inside ClickWhale).
- Slug. The custom URL to your link. The slug is the end part of a URL after the backslash (“/”).
- Target URL. The URL you want to shorten and customize.
- Nofollow. The nofollow tag tells search engines to ignore that link.
- Sponsored. Indicates links that result from advertisements or paid placements.
- Description. A small description of your link (only visible to you, not your audience).
- Category. A category of your link for better organization in ClickWhale
Of course, some of these fields are just for organizational purposes inside ClickWhale. If you’re looking to keep it as simple as possible, all you need is to fill in the title, slug, target URL, and redirection type.
The Redirection Type #
There are several redirection types we allow you to use with your links.
It’s important to choose the right one for the best user experience and SEO. We’ll now go briefly over each of the redirection types.
- 301 redirect: Moved Permanently. The URL has been permanently moved to a new URL where a user is automatically redirected.
- 302 redirect: Found / Move Temporarily. The URL has been temporarily moved to a different URL where a user is automatically redirected.
- 303 redirect: See Other. The redirects don’t link to the URL itself but to another page (such as a confirmation page).
- 307 redirect: Temporarily Redirect. The URL has been temporarily moved to another location. If accurate click tracking is more important than SEO, and you expect to change your URL periodically, 307 temporary redirects are the way to go.
- 308 redirect: Permanent Redirect. The URL you are trying to access has been permanently moved to a new URL. If it is permanent and you are sending data using a POST request, then use this.
After you choose the redirection type and fill in all details, click the ‘Save link’ button.
4. Test & Preview the Link #
You will now see your newly added link in your ClickWhale Links menu.
It’s important you preview a link and test it before you share it with your audience. We’ve never experienced any problems with our custom links but, just to be sure everything works fine, it’s always a good idea to double-check it.
You Can Now Shorten Links & Improve Engagement! #
Creating custom links will elevate your site and allow you to stand out from competitors.
But there are a lot of additional things you can do to thrive and get ahead even faster. Here are some of our resources you should definitely check.
- How To Use ClickWhale in WordPress to Add Affiliate Links
- ClickWhale Analytics Data: How to Use It To Make A Profit
- 5 Reasons Why You Need to be Using ClickWhale
Custom links combined with the tips you find in the links above will make your website look more professional, while also helping you capture more potential customers and drive higher engagement.
If you have any questions or need anything, you can always reach us at our website, where we are always happy to help!
