Saturday, 11 July 2009

Put web links where people will see them

If you’re putting web links in, make sure they’re where people will see them—not in that bottom right-hand Corner of Death! Yes, people notice links in web content. They’re usually bright blue and underlined, so people notice them. Many people even read links before they look at headlines.

Now that you know that, make it easy for them to get to your links by consistently presenting them in list form or by slamming them right up against the left-hand margin.

Don't put your links in a sentence or they might end up in the invisible right-hand area of the content. Yes, this means you can’t use the old "click here" convention, but for a good reason: it never worked very well anyway.

Here’s an example of a good way to put in links:

There are several cool skateboarding sites you might want to check out. They really rock and they’ve got some great gear you can pick up for not a lot of bucks.

Skateboard.com
Skatefreak.net
Liv2skat.biz

Here’s an example of a bad way to use links:

If you want to read about the latest in cool tricks, check out skateboard.com. For the lowdown on which pro skaters are doing what and dating who, you want to see skatefreak.net. And one of my very favorite places to read blog is liv2skat.com.