The next tip in our “Ways to Increase Your Response Rates” series is to not obfuscate your links. Huh? That’s what I said, too. Simply put, if you have any control whatsoever on the way the URL that you’re linking to, reads, make it simple. Still wondering what I’m talking about? Here’s an example:

BAD: “http://www.xyzsite.com/newsletter/2008/e/a/article/sales2.asp”
BETTER: “http://www.xyzsite.com/Money-Saving-Coupon”

The concept is simple. Actually, the concept is simplicity. If you use URL’s that are long and deep, your reader’s eyes will tend to skip over the URL, because it looks like a jumbled mess. Instead, use something that is short and sweet, with clear benefits that will help reinforce the value of what’s on the other side of the link (Remember our article two weeks ago about enticing the reader?).

Now here’s something: What if you don’t have control of your site structure (the URL)? Here’s a simple way to bypass it: go to bit.ly and create a URL that points to the URL you actually want. A side benefit: bit.ly will actually track the people who visit your links. But you don’t need that, when you consider Online Outbox’s statistics, do you?