Your parish website is likely a simple, concise variation of your church name and/or city, and therefore it is easy for you to direct parishioners and visitors to your main page. But how easy is it for you to guide your website visitors elsewhere on your site? Luckily, you can make it extremely easy in just a few clicks – if you shorten links easily with Bit.ly.
Let’s use our friends at the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) as an example. Their website – www.focusoncampus.org – is easy to share. But what if a FOCUS missionary wanted to direct someone beyond the main page? They could share the full link of the page on their site they want people to read – www.focusoncampus.org/content/4-catholic-podcasts-you-should-be-listening-to. But what if this URL was going on a brochure or in a bulletin announcement? The address is too long to print. In fact, depending on the device you are using to read this email, the address above may be split into two or three lines.
For situations like this, our team recommends using custom URL shorteners such as Bl.ink or Bit.ly. These free services not only allow you to shorten and customize URLs, but most also allow you to track data on link clicks.
Back to our example, the original (long) FOCUS link can be entered into Bit.ly and can now be shared with others as www.bit.ly/4Catholicpodcasts. You create the custom wording after the forward slash and it’s now easier to share and read.
If you want people to reach a specific page on your site, don’t just send them to your main page and hope they find their way; give them clear directions using a URL shortener. Just shorten links with Bit.ly and you’ll be just fine!
