Tuesday's Tip: Create Memorable Web Addresses

For the love of sweetness, goodness and light, please create web addresses that are simple to remember.

Your web addresses should be both easy to say out loud and easy for people to remember.
 
As an example, I’m finishing my graduate degree in English literature. Whenever I need to reference the English department’s website, I just hope over to www.usm.edu/english. Simple, right? But, I always have to google the graduate school’s website because the url isn’t easy to remember. It’s www.usm.edu/graduate-school. I’m sure if it was www.usm.edu/gradschool, I would have no trouble remembering it. This is a matter of mere inconvenience for me, as a current student. But, this could have real implications for prospective graduate students and for the effectiveness of the Graduate School’s marketing materials in general.
  
Many websites will assign automatic web addresses to newly created pages and they can be complicated long strings of words and dashes and underscores. If you can’t get the actual URL to be simple and easy-to-remember, have your tech support shop set up a URL that redirects to your page.
 
Here are some good (theoretical) examples:

• www.abcu.edu/give 
• www.xyzuniversity.com/donate
• www.alumnigive.education.edu

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Now here are some examples of what NOT to do:

• www.abcu.edu/advancement/annualgiving/give_now/42346
• www.xyzuniversity.com/campaign/give-donate-now
• www.education.edu/about/benefits/annual-giving/give

True, you will be promoting your web links in HTML emails and on social media, where you can provide a hyperlink. But still, you will also be promoting your websites in print and direct mail and announcing the giving page web addresses at various events throughout the year.

Make them memorable and easy to type in. Don’t put up more barriers to communication with your constituents. Don’t make it more difficult to give.

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