New platform, new challenges.
I recently migrated my website and newsletter into Ghost, based around the ease of creation. However, one feature I missed from Squarespace was the ability to track the links that had been clicked on my newsletters.
After a little bit of research, I decided that one way to do this would be for me to use a URL shortener on my outbound links and track from there.
Here's how I achieved this quickly:
- Searched for and bought a domain that was snappy and aligned with my Newsletter - I settled on stff.me - which aligned to my newsletter name. This step took the longest!
- Added this domain to my WHM instance and set up a small site for it.
- Installed YOURLS from yourls.org - and set it up to shorten all my URL's to stff.me/url - very impressed with how simple YOURLS is to set up and use. The scripts are extensible, and there is much more I can do here.
- Installed a Chrome Extension to allow me to create URL's quickly.
Four relatively easy steps got this done inside an hour, and now I'm ready to add a branded URL to each of the links that I include in my newsletter and get automatic tracking of which ones are successful.
Any questions on how I got this done, let me know.
