I Made My Own Link Shortener

Some things I do make me feel insane or old, like the guy yelling at the neighborhood kids to stay off his lawn. I no longer jump on all the cool trends (I personally still think Labubu’s are ugly even though I’ve seen them everywhere) and am not hip on the current vernacular, no cap? I add this preamble because I know a lot of people will find what I did silly. I still think it’s a bit wearing-a-tin-cap-just-in-case-aliens silly, but I did it. So, let me explain what I did, why I did it, how I did it, and why I’m ultimately glad I went through the hassle.

My two least favorite things.

I hate ads.

I know everyone dislikes ads, but I really hate ads. I despise getting advertised to, especially in spaces where I had to pay to get in or didn’t consent. Not only do I not want to consume superfluous ads, but I don’t want to subject my followers to pointless ads either—especially if the ad isn’t for my stuff.

There’s something else that I hate almost as much as ads, and that’s subscriptions to software services. A lot of tools have a free version with limited capabilities that works for casual use and then a subscription tier for the better features. For some of these, I see the value:

• Easy to design graphics on Canva for $15 a month, I’ll give it a shot.
• Powerhouse formatting software that makes beautiful book layouts—I need that for my freelance work.
• A pro email account that uses my domain name and looks totally profesh. Eh, it’s only six bucks.

However, for a lot of them, I don’t. I recently migrated my email marketing platform because the one I had been using kept putting more and more features I use behind a hefty paywall. I’ve switched my social media management tools a few times, trying to find a free version that fits my needs since they’re all prohibitively expensive ($99 EVERY month???). Everything I could ever want from Notion is available on their free plan, so there’s no point even glancing at other productivity/organization tools.

One of the free tools I used was a link-shortening app, specifically Bit.ly. It would let me create custom links that were short and easy to share on social media. Even better, shortened links make simple QR codes that are easier to scan. Plus, the links have tracking data, so you can tell how many people used a specific link (my Zoom room being the most popular of the ones I’ve created).

The problem emerges.

I got a lovely email from Bit.ly one day stating that they would be updating their free plan with this totally cool new feature! Instead of the link going to the website you specified, it would show an intermediary page first so followers could get a preview of where the link was planning on taking them.

This preview page would also have ads!

(If you didn’t read those last few paragraphs using a tone dripping in sarcasm, feel free to go back and do so.)

Adding extra clicks and distractions when guiding followers to my totally cool content is the last thing I want. Any friction between wanting to view my webpage and actually getting there results in a loss of readers (and potential buyers of my books)!

The natural workaround would be to buy a Bit.ly subscription to turn off the preview pages. After my outrage subsided, I considered my options:

• Embrace the ads. Hell no.
• Purchase a Bit.ly subscription.
• Switch link-shortening providers.

Yeah, link shortening isn’t an exclusive relationship, but I realized that if Bit.ly could suddenly change how the links I created using their platform worked, any linking service could do the same. After a little research, I learned that URL-shortening is one of those grimy entrepreneurial-get-passive-income side hustles, and I doubted I’d find a tool that would do what I want for the price I was willing to pay.

Lots of people are angry.

I’m not the only person mad at the blatant money-grabbing performed by linking tools made for small businesses and content creators. An author friend of mine recently had a rough experience dealing with a QR code creation tool.

It began when my friend wanted to share his writing YouTube channel with other authors at a book fair. He decided to hand out business cards with the channel info so everyone he talked with could look up his YouTube later. He used a QR tool that takes in the URL and spits out a tidy image, verified the code worked, and added it to the card design.

After ordering 500 gorgeous business cards announcing the new channel, he checked the QR code again. Instead of bringing him to his YouTube channel, it brought him to the QR tool website, asking him to pay money to get the code to work. The URL encoded in the little square was never his YouTube channel URL; it was a redirecting link that worked properly for only a few days, and would only continue working every month that he sent the QR company money.

His beautiful new cards were worthless.

The QR company’s sales tactics felt like extortion, and my friend wasn’t going to play their game. Since there wasn’t enough time before the book fair to order more cards, he printed stickers with the correct QR code and stuck them on all the cards. It was a tedious and time-consuming process that should have been avoidable.

QR codes look gross.

I wanted to put tidy QR codes on my business cards. Although my website URL is descriptive and easy to remember, it’s also a little long.

https://www.bethmartinbooks.com

It makes a big honking QR code. Now, if I want to link to a specific post or page, then it gets absolutely unwieldy.

I didn’t want to pay anyone to make my links and QR codes look nicer and tidier, but it became clear that if I wanted that and all the tracking information they could provide, I’d have to pay someone. Reluctantly, I pulled out my wallet.

My Solution: I’ll do it MYSELF

Instead of giving Bit.ly or any other link-shortening service my money, I decided to purchase a new domain name and use that as my link-shortening and tracking solution. After looking at what domains were available, short, and maybe sort of sounded like they belonged to me, I settled on bmbook.link.

(Feel free to give it a try if you’d like!)

Once I had the domain, I needed to set up the website. Since I’m familiar with Google Sites and it’s simple and free, I used that to create the site. The main page is my version of a Link Tree with links to all the places I hang out on the internet. Although I have my other websites, social media handles, and Amazon store all linked on the main page, it’s also super simple to add new pages and redirects.

For example, instead of going to https://www.bethmartinbooks.com/p/join-now.html to sign up for my newsletter, you can go to bmbook.link/join.

I set up Google Analytics so I can see which pages people go to and how they find the domain, therefore taking care of the tracking side.

In conclusion…

Honestly, once I was determined to set up my own link shortener, it wasn’t too difficult to do. Would it have been easier and faster to pay Bit.ly $10/month for tidy QR codes? Yeah. But my link-shortening solution cost only ~$10/year and didn’t take that much time to get all set up.

Do I recommend making your own link-shortening domain? Well, that’s up to you. If you’re all over the internet and asking people to click all over the place, it might be worthwhile. Or maybe you don’t mind shelling out tons of cash for minor conveniences, like $125 for an 11-digit number, but I digress. That’s a vent from another post.

If you do set up a short domain or link website like mine, feel free to share it with me! You can contact me using the contact link at the bottom of the page, or DM me on any of my social media including Instagr—

You know what. Just find me however you want through here:

bmbook.link