Using Redirects to Easily Change Embedded Links
Learn about how using URL redirection for hard-to-change embedded links allows you to quickly and easily change them at any time.
Putting a link in an embedded spot — one that you can’t easily change — is something to put extra consideration into. We often publish new web pages or content and think that the URL will be fine, until it’s not. Some URLs are impossible, or at least are very difficult, to change once they’re in the wild. Does this situation sound familiar? If you’ve run a marketing campaign, or developed an app, it soon might. Here are some situations where you may become stuck with hard-to-change embedded links and how URL redirection can help!
Running a marketing campaign with a dedicated URL
Running a marketing campaign means creating a number of assets which have the URL for a dedicated page on your website. You may use these to promote your campaign on various channels, as well as on advertisements. Updating these for new campaigns can be time consuming, and expensive. It is in every company’s best interest to make the most of their investment and reuse assets when possible.
With URL redirection, you can choose a dedicated URL to include in your marketing collateral and simply redirect your most current marketing campaigns to that URL. This also allows you to send users to your homepage, or to choose specific URLs that help target campaigns for certain audiences. For example, a renovation company can use renovation.com/kitchens for those looking specifically for kitchen campaigns, and renovation.com/bathrooms for bathroom campaigns.
Using a third-party service for your business
Small to medium-sized businesses don’t always have the capacity to build in-house software solutions for their needs, and large businesses usually prefer to buy vs. build IT systems. Organizations use third-party services for things like surveys or forms, which often have specific URLs set by the service — and they can’t be changed. What happens if you decide to switch vendors but don’t want to disrupt your operations?
When sending out links for surveys or forms, it is good practice to select your own URL with your own domain, for example: survey.mybiz.com. Not only are these URLs memorable, but with URL redirection, you retain the flexibility of being able to switch to a different vendor without re-sending a new link to your contacts. Plus, you get to keep your brand on all of your messaging.
Need to put an updatable URL in an app
Businesses that have mobile apps often need to update links on those apps. In-app embedded links are difficult to change and can take up quite a bit of your developer’s time. This is especially cumbersome for companies who use external contractors each time a URL update is needed.
In the planning and building stages of your mobile app, it’s a good idea to identify links which may need updating. Instead of then having to constantly update them, choose specific URLs for these links and simply redirect your updated URLs to them. URL redirection takes significantly less time and effort than having to go back through an app and update links.
Hard-to-change links do not have to be a big pain point for you and your business. With careful planning, strategic URL selection, and URL redirection, you can work around these issues easily.
This post originally appeared on the EasyRedir website.
