How many social media channels do you have now? At least three, I bet. Likely more.
The funky part about all of social media URLs is that they’re usually inconsistent. Just take a look at a few of mine. Try reciting those to prospects without making their heads spin.
- Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tofurious
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tofuriouspage
- Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/tofurious
So, I’ve decided to consolidate. Imagine how simple and pretty the following business card draft looks! Simple and minimal.
Want to learn how to create link redirects like this? This is the only beginning. You could redirect anything!
(this tutorial is for Apache (Linux server), which is probably most of you)
301 htaccess Redirect
It requires a minimal bit of server knowledge, but I’ll walk you through it. There are WordPress plugins that do 301 redirects, but this is how you code it.
1. View Hidden Files
You need to change your viewing settings on your computer to be able to see an .htaccess file (because they’re hidden by default).
Login to your server via FTP. If you see an .htaccess file (e.g., image below), download it and open it with a notepad / text pad application. Otherwise, download this file. Use this file if you’re on WordPress.
Unzip the file, then we’re going to edit it.
3. Edit .htaccess File
Once you open the file with Dreamweaver or equivalent, change the links to fit your profiles. The following codes are written within the general file. If you’re using WordPress, skip to the next example.
Redirect 301 http://tofurious.com/f http://www.facebook.com/tofuriouspage
Redirect 301 http://tofurious.com/p http://pinterest.com/tofurious
(a) First, change the prefix to what you want the shortcut to be. For example, “http://tofurious.com/t” or “http://tofurious.com/twitter” or whatever you want.
(b) Next, change the suffix to the destination URL. For example, “http://twitter.com/tofurious” or even “http://www.google.com/” if you want.
For WordPress users, use the following as a reference. Remember to put all of this before the WordPress htaccess calls!
RewriteRule ^f$ http://www.facebook.com/tofuriouspage [R=301,L]
RewriteRule ^p$ http://pinterest.com/tofurious [R=301,L]
(a) First, change the prefix to what you want the shortcut to be. For example, “^t$” means “http://tofurious.com/t.” You may change it to “^$twitter” if you’d like, which would mean “http://tofurious.com/tofurious.”
(b)Next, change the suffix to the destination URL (link before “[R=301,L]“). For example, “http://twitter.com/tofurious” or even “http://www.google.com/” if you want.
4. Save and Upload
I would suggest changing your existing .htaccess file to .htaccess2, so that you have your original file. This way, you could revert back to the renamed file if anything goes awry. Afterward, upload your newly saved .htaccess file to the root directory of your website.
Test! If it doesn’t work, then either the .htaccess was not edited correctly or wasn’t uploaded to the correct directory on your server.
Cheers,
Lawrence Chan
P.S. I recently saw a business using this same concept. My friend invited me to John’s Incredible Pizza (suped up Chuck E. Cheese’s) and I saw their social media card. Look familiar?
P.P.S. Spring is here! I found some rabbits in this field of mustard flowers! I felt a bit like Katniss Everdeen.
In the wordpress reference you’re using ^t$ but in the example you’re using ^$t …. which one is correct?
Hi Nick – Sorry typo. It’s ^t$.
Thanks :)
I’m getting an Internal Server Error message when I try it. I’m not sure if my web hosting provider allows for redirects via the .htaccess file. I’ll have to do more research on this one.
Check to make sure that you’re using Apache. A simple HTML or Windows server (IIS) redirect are different.
I just figured most people are on WordPress / php.
OO, Thank, download plugins.
I dont get the message. In wordpress or blogger etc. you can take any word or sentence and lay a re-direction link underneath it. Can someone help me out what I’m missing?
Hi Andreas,
I don’t quite understand your question. Can you rephrase?
Thanks,
Lawrence
Ha sorry for my English. No prob, let me try to explain more simple. I’m just wondering what your post is all about. As much I understand you want to show us how to redirect a word – lets say “Tofurious”to a certain website (for example http://www.facebook.com/tofuriouspage“). I dont understand why you need all this coding, as in wordpress or blogger you can take any word in a post and put a link on it.
Thanks
you said it works on linux only, what about windows?can you make another tutorial?;)
Love this info! Thanks for sharing, Lawrence!
This is genius! Thanks for always making the photog industry a simpler, more aesthetically pleasing world in which to work!
thanks lawrence for posting this! this is awesome! and a excuse to make more business cards. the easier it is for the consumer to find your business the better, because not everyone is a geek like us, LOL check it.
http://bradyoshiro.com/t
much mahalos! you rock!
PS: when you coming to Hawaii? cheeehuuu!
Great idea. If you are on WordPress I recommend a plugin called pretty links. You can do the same with it.
Also, if you have a Facebook landing page, direct your http://www.website.com/f to the landing page.
Thanks.