Vanity URL Tips - David V. Kimball

What is a vanity URL? You probably have a few. We’ll use Twitter as an example. When you sign up for an account, you are asked to create a username. Your username becomes your “Twitter handle” or “@username” and also your vanity URL. For instance, If Bob created a Twitter account with the username “bob”, his vanity URL would be twitter.com/bob.

Here are some general vanity URL tips:

Keep it professional

This will vary depending on the service, but oftentimes you can’t change your vanity URL once you have set it. This means that facebook.com/L33tSk8r27 might not be an impressive vanity URL if you plan on making any professional connections.

Use your name

Not always a “must” but generally a good idea. A vanity URL is a type of identification, so you should try to create authentic usernames that most accurately represent you.

Be consistent (if you can)

Try to keep your username the same across multiple networks, especially for your social media profiles. If you’re mentioned in an Instagram post and the caption is shared on Twitter, you want to be sure both names are owned by you. Plus consistency is important on the web not only for establishing brand and identity, but helpful for SEO as well. Plus it always saves you a step when you don’t have to remember a different username every time you want to log in to a service.

Make it unique

It’s cool to have twitter.com/bob because it’s very short, but you’re likely to run into frustrations when facebook.com/bob and instagram.com/bob are already taken. So try to balance a uniqueness factor to your username while keeping an eye on its length. Try not to go over 15 characters.

What if it’s too late?

Already set a username? Don’t fret! You may be able to change it still. Facebook allowed one change, and when they rolled out updates that gave every user a Facebook.com email address, they allowed an additional change. Just look under a services settings or contact the support team if you want a different vanity URL.

Me? Well I’m davidvkimball on practically everything. It’s worked for me so far. It’s unique (so it’s generally not taken by another user), it’s descriptive, and it’s professional.