How to make a QR code for a website link

The steps

1. Open the page on your phone, the way a visitor would.
2. Once it has loaded, copy the address from the address bar. That’s the final address.
3. Trim anything you don’t need, such as tracking added by the app you shared it from.
4. Paste it into a QR generator and make the code.
5. Print a proof and test it on two phones.

Each step has a reason, below.

Link to the exact page

Send people to the page the code promises, not your homepage. A code beside the menu should open the menu; a code on a product should open that product. Every extra tap on a phone loses some people, and a homepage that asks them to find their own way loses the most. If the page you want doesn’t exist yet, it’s usually worth making one: a simple page made for the code, with the one thing people came for at the top.

Use the shortest address that works

Every character goes into the code. More characters mean more modules, smaller modules at the same printed size, and a bigger minimum print. Here is how the address changes the code at error correction level Q, the level most generators use for codes without a logo:

The minimums assume a sharp print and come from our print size guide. The bigger cost is at the far end: a sign read from three metres is fine either way, but a 53 × 53 code on a business card is close to its limit.

If your website lets you, make a short address such as example.com/menu that redirects to the long page. A redirect on your own domain is fine: it’s yours, and you can change where it goes later. Drop www. if your site works without it, and remove leftovers such as ?ref=share that apps add when you copy a link.

Use https and the final address

Always use https://. Browsers warn about plain http pages, and the extra hop to the secure version slows the first load.

Use the address the page actually ends up at. If http://example.com redirects to https://example.com, which redirects to https://www.example.com/, a scan makes three round trips before anything appears, and every redirect is one more thing to break in a future redesign.

Avoid putting a third-party link shortener or tracking redirect in a printed code. The code then depends on another company staying in business and keeping your link. Some content blockers and workplace networks block tracking domains outright. And phones show the domain before opening: people trust yourbusiness.com more than a string of random letters on a domain they’ve never heard of.

UTM tags without the bloat

UTM tags are the utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign parameters that analytics tools read to tell you a visit came from your poster. They’re useful, but long: in the table above, three tags took the code from 41 × 41 to 53 × 53.

• Use fewer, shorter tags. ?utm_source=qr is often enough to separate code visits from everything else. https://example.com/menu?utm_source=qr is 38 characters and a 33 × 33 code.
• Or tag the redirect, not the code. Print example.com/p1 and have it redirect to the fully tagged address. The code stays small and the analytics stay complete.
• Use a different tag per place, such as the window and the table cards, if you want to compare them.

Anyone can read and change UTM tags in the address bar, so keep them to plain labels and never put anything private in them.

A static code is enough on your own domain

If the link is on a domain you control, the page can change while the code stays the same. example.com/menu can show this month’s menu for years, and if the page ever moves, you redirect the old address. There’s nothing to subscribe to.

A dynamic code makes sense when the destination is on someone else’s platform and might change, such as a booking site or a marketplace listing, or when you want scan counts without touching your own analytics. Our guide to static vs dynamic QR codes goes through the trade-offs.

Capital letters, spaces and accents

Domain names aren’t case-sensitive, but the rest of an address often is: /Menu and /menu can be different pages on some servers. Copy the address exactly rather than retyping it.

Spaces and accented letters in an address are stored as percent codes: a space becomes %20, three characters, and an accented letter copied from an address bar often takes six. A file named Our Menu Été.pdf makes a much denser code than menu.pdf. Choose plain, lower-case names for anything you’ll link to from print.

Test it

Print a proof at the real size, scan it with an iPhone and an Android phone on mobile data, and check the page on the phone, not just that it opens. Our guide on how to test a QR code has the full checklist and the common failures.

Make it in QR Island

In the QR Island studio, Link is the first code type: paste the address into the message bar. The size hint beside it shows the smallest safe print width as you type, so you can see straight away what trimming the address saves. Free codes are static, made in your browser and never expire. Get QR code shows the flat code; download it as a PNG (1024 px at 300 dpi) or an SVG that scales to any size, or open the print sheet. If the destination may change after printing, an Editable code, our dynamic code, costs US$19 a year: it prints a short qrisland.com link whose destination you can change at any time from its manage link, and it includes the Island pack.