michael owen hill

General Linking Best Practices

Key points:

·          Text links should create logical paths through a Web site, leading your visitor toward your conversion goal.

·          Support your visitor’s train of thought, but don’t break it.

·          Do not rely on common sense to guide the software or developer that actually codes the links. Make sure all linking instructions are accurate and consistent with best practices.

Dos:

·          Links should appear within plain text, not in Headers or Subheads.

·          Try to avoid linking the first words on a page – you don’t want to lead visitors away before they consume any of the content on the current page.

·          Include either a call to action, Contact link or both somewhere above the fold (in the first third or half of the page) as well toward the end of the page.

·          Meet visitors’ expectations by ensuring the anchor text (i.e. words appearing within your link) also appears prominently on your target page.

·          Make links easy for readers to scan – separate them from one another with plain text.

·          Support optimization and usability by linking only to relevant content. Don’t force links between pages that are topically unrelated.

How many links for each page? The “right” number of links per page will vary. You might create 3-5 links on a typical informative page, but you might logically create many more on a page that serves as an overview of a topic or list of services. Larger sites may warrant more links per page than smaller sites. The best guideline to follow: create links to related content when they make sense for your users.

Best Practices for Linking Between Web Sites

 Key points:

·          Give your visitor fair warning if they’re about to leave the current site.

·          Linking back and forth between sites in the navigation should be avoided.

·          Judicious linking between the customer’s own sites is fine. Outbound links to other sites is discouraged.

·          Include precise linking instructions