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How to set up vanity URLs: A practical Guide

Want to make the most out of your marketing campaign? Then a vanity URL is what you need. It’s the ultimate way to get noticed in this ever-growing digital landscape. In this guide, we’ll cover the do’s and don’ts of vanity URLs, and show you how to create one step by step. You’ll see just how easy it can be!

In this article, you'll find: 

  1. What are vanity URLs? 
  2. Best practices when using vanity URLs
  3. How to create a vanity URL

What are vanity URLs? 

A vanity URL, also called a vanity link, is a web address that’s specifically customized to be more visually appealing and easy to remember. It’s created to promote a brand, product, or identity. The URL usually features the brand or a relevant keyword for the business, product line, or campaign.

With a vanity URL, you customize an automatically generated URL from your website to create a more user-friendly or branded link that redirects to the unmodified version.

An automatically generated URL could, for example, look something like this: 

brand.com/page/d/limited-edition-offers-Vpjw-Rz6wc

And then the simple, clean vanity URL could look like this:

brand.com/LimitedEdition

It’s also possible to use a completely different domain name. In this case, it’s referred to as a vanity domain. A vanity domain is basically a vanity URL, but the difference is that you acquire a new domain name specifically for the new URL. 

So, for example, if the real URL for your promotional campaign is: 

https://www.examplemagazine.com/discount/subscribe

Then the vanity domain could look like this: 

ExampleMagazineDiscount.com

Vanity URLs can be used in any promotional material that externally points to the URL. It’s often used in places where a URL isn’t clickable, like a magazine ad. It helps people remember the address, so they can type it in later from the top of their heads. A vanity URL can also be used for tracking the performance of a link that’s promoted offline.

Learn more about vanity URLs

Best practices when using a Vanity URL

There are a few do’s and don’ts you’ll want to consider before creating a vanity URL: 

There is one thing that’s absolutely important when you want your vanity URL to work smoothly - it needs to be properly redirected to a real URL. By redirecting a vanity URL to the real URL, you prevent broken links and ensure that users consistently reach the intended content or destination, reinforcing your brand identity. Redirecting the vanity URL also creates the opportunity to track the performance of the link.

You’ll want people to be able to type in your URL from the top of their heads. So make it memorable! Use something catchy. Something easy to pronounce. And perhaps use capital letters or bold text when promoting the URL. This breaks up the string of letters into distinguishable words. 

It can also be a good idea to use relevant and related keywords in the URL. This will not only boost your rankings, it will give potential visitors a good idea of where the link leads to. 

Definitely keep it short and simple. This is an important way to make sure your vanity URL is memorable. Do keep in mind though that abbreviations are something to avoid. While abbreviations might be short, they are often difficult to remember. 

Your URL must look appealing at first glance. And be sure to avoid embarrassing and unintended interpretations of the text in the URLs (think speedofart.com or penisland.net). 

Even though you’ll want to make the link as short as possible, it should still consist of descriptive words that convey meaning. This encourages clicks since people get a better idea of where the link brings them. 

Special characters such as dashes and hyphens are particularly distracting. They give your vanity URL a complicated look and will make it way more difficult to reproduce the link from memory. The same goes for links with random numbers added to them.

The purpose of a vanity URL is to make your link more memorable, provide easy access, and increase brand awareness. It’s especially useful in marketing campaigns and provides an added benefit in case you want to promote a link offline, where it won’t be clickable. 

But in some cases, a vanity URL might not add benefit. This could be the case if you already have a nice URL. If your initial URL is already short and memorable, you’d better leave it as it is, and use your initial one in your marketing campaign. 

When you’d like to use your URL in a mailing list, using a vanity URL might not be the best option either. For safety reasons, emails with redirects are often sent to spam, because email services often find it difficult to track the link’s destination.

Why use redirect.pizza for your vanity links? 

As we’ve discussed, using a redirect service for your vanity links can be a real asset! It can make the whole process a lot easier in so many ways. And it comes with many extra features. 

With redirect.pizza a vanity URL is set up in no time, and only takes a few clicks! And once it’s set up, it will be easy to manage. Say, for instance, you’ll need to update or change the destination of the vanity URL. With redirect.pizza, you can do so without altering the URL users are familiar with. This simplifies maintenance and avoids the need to update promotional materials across the web or in print. As we’ve mentioned before, redirect.pizza also comes with an extensive analytics tool, providing detailed information on important metrics.

The benefits of using redirect.pizza for your vanity URLs

Automatic HTTPS

We automatically implement a SSL certificate for your domain(s), ensuring that your redirects are always secure

Built-in Analytics

Keep track of your redirects with our built-in analytics window.

Broken Destination Monitoring

We will let you know once a redirect has a broken destination. In other words, ensuring that your redirects are always pointing to a page that is accessible.

Advanced Redirect Options

With redirect.pizza, you can use any redirect type you like. We offer advanced redirect options, such as path forwarding and other complex redirect rules. redirect.pizza also supports a wide variety of destination variables.

Automatic DNS

Aautomatic DNS makes it possible to apply automatic DNS in bulk, on multiple hosts or domains in one go. It’s the easiest way to manage all of your redirecting needs from a single platform.

Reliability and Performance

redirect.pizza provides guaranteed responsiveness and the fastest redirects possible. This is made possible with our high-performance edge network. With our global presence, we ensure minimal latency, enhancing overall user experience.

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How to create a Vanity URL with redirect.pizza

So now that we’ve gone over the best practices of a vanity URL, you might be eager to start setting it up right away. We’ll discuss how to approach this step by step. 

  1. 1

    Step 1: Choose a domain name, a top-level domain, and a slug. 

    A vanity domain or URL can be customized completely to your liking. So you can decide freely what the vanity domain or URL should look like. What’s the domain name you’d want to use? Do you want a simple top-level domain like .com? Or maybe something more catchy, like .pizza? And what should be the slug, so the word or phrase that follows after the top-level domain? The most important thing here is to keep it short, of course. And above all, memorable. 

  2. 2

    Step 2: Choose a hosting provider

    The next step is to choose an appropriate hosting provider for your domain. The use of a redirect service such as redirect.pizza can be a real asset here. redirect.pizza offers extensive link management, which means you can opt for a simple and affordable hosting provider. 

    redirect.pizza is compatible with almost all hosting providers, including GoDaddy, Namecheap, Cloudflare, Amazon, Azure, Google, and more. 

  3. 3

    Step 3: Redirect the vanity URL to an actual (real) URL with redirect.pizza

    Once you’ve picked your domain name and hosting provider, it’s time to set up the redirect. Which is a crucial step! For the vanity URL to work properly, it’s important to redirect it to the destination URL where the marketing page is located. 

    Create redirect

  4. 4

    Step 4: keep track of the performance of your vanity links

    redirect.pizza also comes with built in analytics. This helps you keep track of key performance metrics. It shows you detailed info on things such as the amount of hits per period, traffic sources, and the geographical location of your visitors. 

Conclusion

So there you have it! Setting up vanity URLs doesn't have to be a headache. With tools like redirect.pizza, you can create catchy, memorable links in no time. These custom URLs not only look great but also help you track how well your marketing is doing. Just remember, while they're awesome for most situations, you might want to skip them for email campaigns or when your original link is already short and sweet. At the end of the day, vanity URLs are all about making life easier for you and your audience. So why not give them a shot and see how they can spruce up your online presence?