and I’m going to show you how you can easily create your own too.  But first, here’s a little background about URL shortening and why it’s an important aspect of your social media, affiliate marketing, press release, and even search engine optimization strategy.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with URL shortening, here’s a quick example of when you may want to chop a long URL down to something smaller.  Let’s say you want to post a link to a specific page on a shopping website for home office furniture in your tweet on Twitter. Unfortunately, the URL you want to include is 133 characters long which doesn’t leave space to talk about much else in your tweet.  You can reduce the length of the link by submitting it a URL shortening service which outputs a shorter URL that takes the user to the same exact page for you to use in your tweet, as in the example below:

Original URL (133 characters): http://www.thehomeofficedepot.com/shop.php?c=500&n=1069102&i=B00252CGL2&x=Cherry_Finish_Home_Office_Corner_
Workstation_Computer_Desk

New Short URL (17 characters): http://xurls.us/3

As you can see, the new URL is 116 characters shorter than the original link, resolves to the exact same pages, and is now Twitter friendly.

Lately, I have been doing a lot with Twitter and affiliate marketing.  In doing so, I’ve come to recognize the importance of “URL control” in posting links on social media networks and within my own affiliate promotional pieces.  There are many services out there that allow people to shorten URLs.  The most well known of these websites are bit.ly and TinyURL, but there are tons of others, each with its own unique features.

It occurred to me that given the relative simplicity of these services that it would be easy to set-up and host my own URL shortening/redirection services using a domain I own.  Having my own URL reduction website gives me the ability to shorten URLs, incorporate keywords of my choosing, view click statistics and user information, set my own redirection rules, and add advertising.  In other words, as a web marketer, I now have the ability to abbreviate links with custom characteristics while gaining valuable analytical insight.

Steps To Create Your Own Domain Redirection Service

What follows is a basic overview of how to get your URL shortening website up and running pretty quickly.

1.  Find the shortest available domain name you can

I’ve been using Bustaname.com to help find some very good unregistered website domain names for a while now.  It was Bustaname.com that enable me to find xURLs.us (the URL for my domain name shortening service) which is a beautifully short and descriptive 8 character (including the period) domain name.  Many URL reduction websites use exotic two-letter, top level domains (TLD) like .al, .cc, .ly.  These are great because they are shorter than the classic “.com” TLD, but they can cost you anywhere from $10 – $90 to reserve.  Please note: many of country-specific TLDs have special criteria that must be met in order to reserve them.  You can also use the little domain availability tool below to quickly check if a website name is available. 

Once you’ve settled on a short domain name, the next step is to register it.  I use 1&1 Internet for domain registration.  It’s quick, easy, and cheap.  Others may prefer www.GoDaddy.com .

2.  Get reliable hosting

Most of the URL shortening services I came across researching this project are built upon PHP and MySQL, so I’d recommend a server host that comes with these two already installed.  Again, I use 1&1 Internet for server hosting, but you should use the web host you feel most comfortable using.

3.  Select a URL shortening script

It seems to be fairly easy for experienced web programmers to write their own custom URL redirection script, but why reinvent the wheel?  There are a few dozen free URL shortening scripts out there and some paid applications for you to select from.

xURLs is built upon a simple PHP script called Yourls.  I chose Yourls as my redirection platform because it’s free, has an easy installation, a straightforward admin interface, and a decent statistics package.

The admin console for Yourls:

The stat package in Yourls:

Some other URL shortening scripts include: Kissa.be, Shorty, and TightURL.

Each script has its own mini-URL creation procedures.  For example, some present the target page in an iframe of a dynamically generated page, while others use a 301 HTTP redirect or even a Meta refresh as the mechanism to get users to the intended page.  Some scripts allow you to create multiple mini-URLs which point to a single long URL.  You should demo, research, and analyze how each script works and select the one that fits your needs.

4.  Install and customize the shortening script

Next, after you have selected a domain shortening script, you’ll need to install it in your web host environment.  You should review the installation documentation for the specific URL shortening script you selected, but for the most part they all involve roughly the same steps:  (1)create a SQL database (2)populate database connection parameters in a PHP set-up file (3)toggle settings in a configuration file (4)upload the files for the URL shortening application to your web server via FTP (5)initiate an installation/customization script.

If you’re using Yourls, you should review its installation instructions and this important note about installing Yourls on a 1&1 web server.  Also, some of you may not want your URL shortening service to be available for public use.  In this case, you will need to password protect your website.  Yourls allows you to do this quickly by changing the line “define(’YOURLS_PRIVATE’, true);” in the config-sample.php to “true”.

As a nice little feature to get your started, Yourls includes a file called sample-public-front-page.php.txt to give you an idea about how to construct the homepage for your URL shortening website.  You can customize the contents of this file to your liking.  When you’re finished designing your homepage, change the file name to index.php and upload it to the root directory of your website.  I’d recommend designing a decent looking homepage and installing visitor tracking (i.e. Google Analytics, GoStats) for your URL reduction website – you never know when curious users may come-a-knocking.

5.  Start posting your short links

Now that your URL redirection script is up and running under your own domain, it’s time to start posting your short links on Twitter, Facebook, and your own affiliate websites.  Here’s an image of xURLs, my own URL chopping website, at work in the wild.

If you want to see something amazing, try posting a link routed through your URL shortening/redirection service in a tweet and immediately jump over to the statistics screen and watch how fast the clicks accumulate.

1. Website Magazine.  A must-have for online business professionals – subscribe
2. Deliver: A Magazine for Marketers. Published by the US Post Office. – subscribe
3. DMNews. A direct marketing magazine – subscribe
4. Internet Retailer. A very awesome ecommerce magazine – subscribe
5. Target Marketing.  Another direct marketing magazine – subscribe
6. All About the ROI.  Case studies, expert advice, ecommerce, etc – subscribe

Please let me know if there are other free resources out there.

Intent of the Superlative Search

The superlative search engine query provides a lot of insights about the user’s intent.  For example,  the query “best seafood restaurant in Massachusetts” can imply the following:

• the searcher is likely planning to go to an eatery in the near future.
• the searcher is likely seeking the advice of other seafood eaters, food critics, or from the restaurants themselves in selecting a restaurant.
• the searcher could be seeking information on how to evaluate a seafood restaurant.
• the searcher is likely looking for only one restaurant, the best restaurant.
• the searcher is looking for information which may be subjective or qualitative.

My conclusion about the superlative search is that it is innately a social query.  In other words, people are using search engines to find opinions written by past purchasers, presumably to act on the information they find at a future point.  This is different than a basic informational search.  For example, had the user typed the phrase “seafood restaurants in Massachusetts” (without the superlative) we could conclude that a simple list of Massachusetts restaurants could suffice as response.  The second conclusion is that the the superlative query has both an explicit informational component and a prominent, but implicit action component.  The user is looking for information that will help him or her do something.

From a search engine optimization standpoint, it may not simply be enough to have a website that ranks algorithmically if the searcher includes a quality modifier.  You’ll get a click, sure, but will you get the user’s patronage without third party confirmation?  Unlikely.  The fact is that the searcher is not expressly looking for information about your product; the user is searching for the opinions of others regarding the merchandise or services you offer.  Furthermore, the self-declared best of something must be supported by another party for the assertion to be meaningful.  This is where hosted user evaluations (such as the ones on Amazon.com) and review websites such as Yelp intercede.

Hosted Product Reviews and Search Engine Optimization

The problem with using superlative adjectives on ecommerce website is that they cannot be integrated into product descriptions without compromising the objectivity of the narrative users must read in order to understand the product offering.  Product descriptions are intended to tell the shopper what the product is, how to use it, and present technical specifications.  Product descriptions are much more important online because the user does not always have direct access to the product or service to inspect first hand.  So, using words like “best” and “greatest” demote the objectiveness of the product description and can often sound like unsubstantiated salesman speak.  How confusing would it be for buyers if every product description found in an online store used the word “best”?

This is why many online retailers capture and display customer comments next to product descriptions.  A glowing review from a satisfied customer is worth much more to a user and to the bottom line of a website than an evangelical product description.  Additionally, review pages can give a website a boost in search engine standings.  Superlative phrases in comments left by past customers can help increase the website’s ranking for queries containing quality modifiers.  In this way, creating good products, providing timely delivery, and offering great customer service can aid in the SEO of a website.  Thus, online shopkeepers should leave the singing of praises to their customers, and instead focus on making sure the search engine spiders have a path to find user reviews on their website.

Review Websites and Search Engine Optimization

Yelp and Epinions are two popular review websites.  Review websites, in addition to providing unbiased (in theory, but not always in practice) reviews, are also crucial components of online reputation management.  Customer opinion websites can cosign any claims of positive superlatives made by sites promoting a product or service.  There exists an interesting relationship between search marketing and online customer review aggregators – although a listing in the search results for an opinion website may initially attract a user’s click for a superlative search, they are unlikely to be the user’s final destination because these types of websites do not resolve the implicit action component of the superlative query.  After reading the opinions others have posted on the website, the user is likely to go to another location to act on the information they have obtained even if it is at a much later time.  To resolve the action component the information seeker may then look for information about the company or product encountered on a review website using a search engine or by navigating to the website directly.  In some ways, a good user review can be as valuable as a direct link from a review forum both in terms of providing referral traffic or by leading a user to conduct a search for information about your business, resulting in an increase in your website’s natural traffic volume.

I’m a big fan of education in all its glorious forms: traditional classroom learning, online education, and on-the-job-training.  Having completed graduate school in 2008, I needed a new set of educational goals.  More specifically, I wanted to learn a web programming language.

For the past three weeks, I have been taking a non-credit Ed2Go course entitled Introduction to PHP and MySQL offered through the University of Maryland Baltimore County Training Centers.  Ed2Go provides six week long online courses that cost between $95 – $120.  I must say, that I am thoroughly impressed with the presentation of the material and the quality of the instruction.  I am especially impressed with the knowledge and responsiveness of the course instructor.  Ed2Go classes have flexibility build into assignment deadlines to accommodate working adults.  Lastly, the intuitive e-learning platform means that you don’t have to “learn the platform”, instead you simply learn PHP.

Why did I sign up for an Ed2Go class?

I briefly considered enrolling in another Masters program (which I still may do in the future), however I couldn’t bear the thought of having to amass another pile of student loans obtaining a second graduate degree.  So, I asked myself what do I really want to get out of going back to school?.  The answer was simple: I want to learn about web programming. This is different than desiring to earn a degree in a subject, or wanting to do firsthand research in an academic environment, or all the other responses my heart could have given.

I had failed in the past at completing self-paced enrichment courses because they lacked deadlines, structure, and were low stakes – meaning I wouldn’t waste tuition money or receive a failing grade for not finishing them.  For me, options like MIT’s Opencourseware, although amazing in many ways, aren’t practical.

I have always had a healthy interest in software programming and application testing and despite not having much formal academic training, I have a “better than expected” knowledge of the methodologies of both.  As an undergraduate, I took a C programming course that provided me with an introduction to the data structures and program flow controls common in every programming language.  Soon afterwards, I began developing simple, yet effective procedural programs using Autoit 3.0 to streamline my tasks as an application integration tester.

Ed2Go and Career Changes

Ed2Go classes are great for professionals seeking to acquire new skills to help advance their careers or for lifetime learners desiring personal enrichment.  Although, they won’t help you transition into a new career like a certificate or degree program can, Ed2Go courses can certainly give you the opportunity to test the waters of a career change before spending thousands of dollars on tuition.

I’m still working my way through Introduction to PHP and MySQL but so far, so good.  I’m even considering signing up for Intermediate PHP and MySQL which starts in a few short weeks.

A few minutes ago, I saw something on TV I don’t think I’ve ever seen before – a nonpolitical commercial that advocates a plan to detoxify this country from its dependence on foreign oil.  Have a look-see for yourself.  Although, I instantly recognized the old fellow in the video as mega-billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens – this being the election season – I still expected to hear the phrase “Paid for by supporters of ____”.  Imagine my surprise when no such endorsement came (did you feel the same way?).  Curious to find out more information about the so called “PickensPlan”, I jumped over to PickensPlan.com and did some clicking around.

Now, regardless of what you may think about T. Boone Pickens as a human being, or his political beliefs, business practices or philanthropy, you have to admire the way he (or his online marketing agency) is putting the power of Internet social media to work.  It’s all there right down to the web 2.0 blue color scheme of the website.  With chicklets leading to every social media network that matters, a video blog, a forum, badges for webmasters to post to their site, he’s making savvier use of social media elements than a group of teenage girls the day after a high school prom.  And this is exactly how it’s supposed to be done.

I’m willing to bet Mr. Pickens’ social media blitz won’t play any small role in getting people to do verbs such as write, organize, and collaborate once they’ve viewed the print and television commercials.  Despite budgeting nearly $60 million to promote his plan, the site has all the look and feel of a true online grassroots movement. The main page is designed as a gateway to get people interested and educated about the PickensPlan, while offsite islands of social networking pages on Facebook and MySpace serve to help new evangelist spread the message to members of their personal network.  It’s hub marketing.  Pretty clever.  I urge folks not to be so quick to chalk this up as an act of charity from a kind old businessman who has had a good run and now wants to do something good for the rest of us.  Pickens’ company has a considerable amount to gain if the plan comes to fruition. However, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say fossil fuel won’t last forever.

Here’s the PickensPlan in case you were wondering what all the hype is about:

reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. More specifically, each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.

But if a computer can’t read such a CAPTCHA, how does the system know the correct answer to the puzzle? Here’s how: Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one. The system then gives the new image to a number of other people to determine, with higher confidence, whether the original answer was correct.

By some estimates, reCAPTCHA provides more than 3,000 man hours of free work per day. Ok… I’m down to fight spam and proofread books with just a few keystrokes.

I heard these two stories on NPR (”On The Media”) over the weekend, and they so tied psychology and sociology to interactive buzz marketing that I had to share them here.  Give them a listen, before you read on.

Peruse any job board for positions relating to interactive marketing and almost always under the desired education requirement you’ll see computer science, IT, business administration, or the narrower disciplines of marketing and public relations.  It seems the interactive marketing community as a whole has severely underestimated the application of a social science degree to an online marketing career.  My undergraduate degrees are in psychology and sociology, and on more than one occasion I have found myself explaining how my training in the social sciences is applicable to a career in marketing.

To me it’s not a big leap; to others it’s implausible.  When people think about psychology, they picture a comfortable room with two people – one sitting in an arm chair taking notes, and the other laying on his back spilling his guts while paying $200 an hour for the privilege to do so.  I didn’t pick psychology out of the list of majors to become a clinical psychologist like the one in this example.  I could care less about a stranger’s relationship with his or her mother.  I started in the field with the desire to become an experimental psychologist and through empirical hypothesis testing I wanted to explore the mysteries of human behavior and mental processes.  If it helps, picture a guy in a white lab coat holding a clipboard observing people through a two-way mirror.

Similarly, I find that people are often misinformed about what sociology involves.  They confuse the discipline with social work or social advocacy when in fact sociology is nowhere as benevolent.  Sociology, in brief, is about investigating the behavior of groups and their interrelationship with the individual.  I have even argued that marketing is a hybrid of applied sociology and business administration, given marketing’s high level goal of influence and persuasion.  It’s pretty well accepted that the multibillion dollar a year industry of market research is a type of applied sociology.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone active in online marketing that would dispute the statement that social media is where it’s at.  With big brands flocking to Facebook and MySpace to transform latent customers in to brand advocates, interactive marketing firms are scrambling to adopt in this new environment.  As much in SEO or PPC, if not more so, interactive marketers that practice social media channel development must ask questions like:

1. How do we influence customers to buy our products?
2. How do we influence customers to promote our brand?
3. How do we enter into a new online community and interact with members effectively?
4. How do we leverage these social networks to create buzz?
5. How do we encourage long term retention in our customers
6. What are our customers saying to us?
7. How do we respond?
8. How do we track the reach of our message?

To my ears, at their core, these are social science questions, not computer science questions.  How companies can actually leverage observations from social science research to generate ROI is the business marketing extension of each of the questions listed above.  Unless marketers first try to understand the questions (and answers) above in the light of the specific community they aspire to influence, they will not be successful in their efforts to generate ROI.  Just because a community or culture exists online, doesn’t make it less of a community or culture.  A person trained in psychology and sociology may be more effective in uncovering deep insights about the types of people behind the screen names used on social networking/media websites than a person with a traditional marketing background.  For example, during my undergraduate years, I took classes in community psychology, social psychology, social problems, psychological anthropology, and methodology of social research.  The sum of all these courses was a solid background in how to systematically dissect, investigate, and influence the inner workings of a community.

Although, I relied on the social media example to make my argument, a social science degree is strongly conducive to success in other areas of online marketing.  In conclusion, folks with psychology and sociology backgrounds have taken courses relating to influence, motivation, perception, group dynamics, cultural studies, demographics, statistical analysis, survey design, consumer psychology, and research – all of which are important in Internet marketing.