Topic: Creating Better Links (Page 1 of 1)

Links are a very important part of a Web page. But when most people think of Web pages, Website Designers think of the content as the text that is written on the page. In many eye tracking studies, it has been shown that people viewing Web pages are drawn to images. But their eyes are also drawn to links. This is because, in most Web pages, links are underlined and in a different color than the surrounding text. They stand out.

When your readers come to a Web page, they are trying to learn something or be entertained. But because most people don't read Web pages, then scan them. Good Web writing takes this into account, and makes the pages as scannable as possible. Because they stand out, links make a Web page more scannable. But you should make sure that the links you're using link to something related to the linked text
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Unless your site is only 1 page, your home page will have links to other parts of your site. And most people will scan your home page more than they will read it, so you want to make the links as self-explanatory as possible. For links off your home page I recommend: Avoid having a home page that is 100% links. This defeats the purpose of scan ability as the links no longer stand out. Make the links pragmatic titles, not fancy. Don't make your readers guess where the link will go. Link to general pages that also have lots of links. Make Your Links Order from General to Specific

When searching for information, people tend to start general and get more specific as they start narrowing down their search. Think of your links as a funnel. You start with a very general category at the top that gets narrower and narrower as your readers find what they are looking for. Review your log files to see what people are searching for. The most commonly used words should be links to other parts of your site. Verify your links go where you imply they will go. Readers searching for information will leave immediately if they think your links lie. Write clear links. If the link text reads "this book..." the link should go to a book, not a bookstore or the author's biography. Don't play games with your links. Use straightforward language, and put links in that are useful to customers, not just for the sake of a link. Create links that go to content rather than just lists of more links. If you're sending your readers to a list of links, add explanatory content to the page. And, make sure that the link pointing to the page explains that they'll get a list of more links.

http://www.intellixmedia.com/web-design.htm is stil a bunch of spammers.

I can cut-and-paste stuff, too.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We Website Designers are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

-S

what's up with the *.htm pages? That is so 1980

Later,

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