One of the most useful tools to come along in recent times for online marketers is URL shorteners.

There are sites in which you can paste a long, http://www.indiegogo.com explains ugly URL into a form, as well as the site will give you a much shorter URL to use within your emails, newsletters and promotions.

Additionally, there are scripts which you can install on your server, that allow you to generate your own shortened urls, which is what I prefer, because of the great control it provides you with.

In-case you are not using the tiny urls, you’re probably losing a whole lot of sales and traffic. The benefits of using shortened urls typically include:

They allow you to conserve space when posting to micro- blogging platforms for example Twitter, where each of your posts is limited by a mere 140 characters.

They look more professional than long, unwieldy affiliate urls (especially if they have your own domain name in them). Longer urls can wrap to 2 lines in your emails, forcing many readers to copy and paste the pieces of the link before also they can visit a recommended page. Many will not jump even though that hoop!

They enable you to log in to a control panel and change where a particular link sends traffic without you having to track down all of the places in which you have placed that link and manually swapping them out. This comes in handy if you are promoting a particular product, and due to what ever reason, you elect to promote an alternative product in the same category.

Additionally, there are occasions when affiliate programs change the software that power things, forcing you to change your affiliate links for a given product. If you use the correct URL shortener, you would merely need to log in to your control panel, click an edit button, change the destination link, and all your links scattered across cyberspace now STILL point to in which you want them to.

This is essential for ebooks, because once an eBook is in your customers’ hands you cannot update those links for most cases. Only ebooks that connect to the net each time that they are read (which most of MY customer don’t like) allow you to change links within the eBook after it’s distributed.

You’ll find literally dozens of third-party link shortening services. I’ve used several of them and they work great except that they control YOUR links. Should they get any complaints, or simply elect to change their business model, they could kill off all your links instantly.

Premium, third-party URL shortening services also hold you hostage. They charge you a monthly fee for extras, or for the ability to have more than a handful of urls on their platform. Some charge you extra if you generate more than a few thousand clicks – they penalize you for being successful.

If you stop paying of such premium services, they frequently shut off all your links INSTANTLY. As soon as you have all those links floating around cyberspace (in ebooks, articles, ads, press releases, ezine editorials, etc.) you don’t want to just kill them off, so you’re STUCK often paying hefty fees, month after month.