The QR Code technology has seen a huge leap in terms of popularity and widespread adoption in the past few years. Now, you only need your native phone camera (or a free mobile app) to access the contents of a QR Code. You can also easily create QR Codes for your marketing needs. In this article, we will discuss how to make your QR Codes better using QR Links.
What are QR Codes?
Quick Response or QR Codes are a type of two-dimensional barcodes that can contain a large amount of information in a wide array of formats. First developed for tracking automobiles by a company in Japan as an improvement to barcodes, they are now widely used not just in inventory management but, more popularly, in marketing. They can contain strings of alphanumeric characters and symbols, URLs for any existing web page on the Internet, files, and other contents.
Their popularity is thanks in part to the development of technology that allows native cameras of smartphones and iPhones. In addition, devices and operating systems that support QR Codes can easily do so by simply downloading a free QR Code scanner that is available in any app marketplace.
In addition, there are many QR Code generators available online that allow you to make static QR Codes for free. This allows everyone to create QR Codes to be used for any marketing campaign.
What are QR Links?
QR Links is a feature that allows you to shorten and customize your URL included in your QR Cloud subscription. This means you don’t need to subscribe to another URL shortening service.
Why Should You Use QR Links for Your QR Codes?
Shortens Your URL
Let’s use a file uploaded on Google Drive as an example. Once you copy the link of a specific file, you would notice a long string of alphanumeric characters and symbols.
Older millennials would remember the time before URL shorteners. If you must visit an online link pasted on a poster, you need to carefully and manually type in each letter, number, and symbol. This means one mistype and you have to find where you went wrong through the long string of characters!
Thankfully, technology has enabled us to shorten URLs. This way, we don’t have to type long strings of characters to get to our destination URL.
Customizes Your URL
In addition to shortening links, you can also customize your URLs to give context to your users and customers. Yes, URL shorteners can give you a system-generated short link, but you can definitely rename your short URL so you will know exactly what that is for.
Normally, system-generated short links are composed of numbers and letters in random cases. This can also be confusing for your users – who would have to manually check the correctness of what they have typed – and you – who might have to check what that specific link stands for.
Makes Your QR Code Easily Scannable
A short URL makes the QR Code less pixelated, as it contains less information. This makes scanning the QR Code easier, at times taking less than a second. QR Codes that contain more elements will be more heavily pixelated. Thus, take longer to read with your camera or scanner.
A shortened URL means the QR Code will have less squares, making it more easily readable using a phone or scanner. This is why marketers prefer custom domains for their QR Code campaigns. You’re supposed to make the experience good for your customers, and fast scanning is part of that.
Makes Your QR Code Dynamic
Another important benefit of using QR Links is that you can use them to create a reusable QR Code. As we have discussed in multiple blogs on our website, you can have a QR Code that you can use over and over again.
Once you have created a QR Code using the QR Link, you can change the destination URL as many times as you want.
How Do You Create QR Links?
Creating QR Links is easy on QR Cloud.
- To create a custom domain, you need a paid subscription with a reliable QR Code generator such as QR Cloud.
- On your QR Cloud dashboard, look for the button that says “Create Link” and choose “QR Link” from the dropdown menu that appears.
- Paste or type the URL of a website you want to shorten on the first blank subfield.
- On the second blank subfield, type a custom short link or leave it blank for a system-generated one.
- Click create.
That’s how simple it is to use QR Links. You may now create a QR Code using this short link. To change the destination URL every time someone scans your QR Code:
- Click on the settings of the QR Page that coincides with the QR Link.
- Click Advanced.
- Under the Leap Link URL, paste your new destination URL.
It’s that simple! Using this, you can reuse the QR Code you have created QR Links for different campaigns. This is what makes QR Codes dynamic and will be valid for as long as you have an active subscription to the QR Code marketing suite.
Conclusion
QR Codes are becoming increasingly popular in recent years, and it’s becoming easier to create them for our marketing efforts. One way to design better QR Codes is shortening the URLs that you encode. This way, they will be scanned easier and faster.
If you’re interested to experience how to use QR Links, subscribe to our Pro plan now! Your first week is on us.
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