Creating A Custom Short Link
Over the Thanksgiving holiday break when I was supposed to be “not working,” I worked. I did not do anything stressful or work for clients, but I did do some “internal,” as I call it, work. For a while, I have been wanting to create a custom short link. I share a lot of content on social media networks and here on my blog. I primarily use goo.gl (Google Link Shortener) and bit.ly (bitly.com), but I had noticed a couple years ago that other businesses were using custom links. Yes, it took me almost two years to finally do this and I can see you shaking your heads. Please stop. Because HostGator was running Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals that included domain name purchases/registration, I decided to go ahead and get this done. Finally.
If you have wondered how to create a custom short link to share content with, here is what I did to do so:
Bitly offers the capability to use a custom domain name to create short links. Instead of the standard bit.ly/xx12345, you can use cust.om/xx12345. To do this, you must first have a domain name that is not being used for anything else (can be a sub domain). It can also only be 15 characters long, to include the “.” I used Domai.nr, to get suggestions and search for a short domain name to use. Most of the variations of “Colleen Eakins Design” that I was interested in, were already taken, so I decided to just go with my name. In the end, I chose “colleeneakns.me”
The next step, was to go to Bitly and enter the new domain name in as a custom link. You can find this by logging into your Bitly account, clicking on “settings” and then clicking on the “advanced” tab. Once I had it entered, I needed to change my A record for the new domain name to point to Bitly. I can admit that this was a little tricky with HostGator. I must say, that it was easier to make these types of changes with my domain names that I still have under GoDaddy. Minus two points for HostGator. Once that was done and verified with Bitly, I was good to go and geeked to have my “vanity” custom short link. I probably frivolously shared content that day, just so that I could ogle my own link.
Here are a couple [frivolous] links that I found helpful and one irrelevant one:
Bitly Support Page – http://colleeneakns.me/1eJyiOF
Mashable Article – http://colleeneakns.me/1cSxG7i
CED on Facebook – http://colleeneakns.me/1cdQ3W2
Colleen Eakins is a dynamic and creative individual that possess a knack for great design. With over 15 years of experience in the field of graphic design, Colleen is able to effectively brand her clients with great design pieces. Her motto is: “Anyone can make a pretty picture, but is it effective? Will it make your customer buy your product or use your services? My design tries to answer with a YES!”