[thelist] RE: linked verbiage (was Free Tip)

Steven Streight vaspersthegrate at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 14 11:01:24 CST 2005


Rob Smith said:

	One of the biggest pet peeves I have is the "For More
Information
Click Here!" Click Here Click Here Enough! Do the
world a favor, follow 
this
formula for proper links:

Verb Adjective Noun ('stuff in single quotes is linked
verbiage')

'Get Results Now' for rapid weight reduction
'See Sunday's Article' for the game schedule


I now say:

I don't quite agree, though you are definitely on the
right track here, my friend.

Making "click here" linked verbiage is an elementary
mistake, so far as web content writing is concerned.

Once again, Jakob Nielsen has covered this very well.

We must think of users Skimming, Scanning, racing
through web sites, in a big hurry. Users skim rapidly,
glancing at bold heads, bold subheads, and blue
underlined hypertext links, among other things.

"click here" carries no information, just a command.

In your example, I beg to differ slightly. Why not:

"rapid weight reduction" as the linked verbiage?

and...

"U of I football game schedule" as the linked
verbiage?

(I added clarifying info to "game schedule")

Think of users only latching onto the blue underlined
hypertext text...make that linked verbiage carry the
necessary information.

I explain linked verbiage further in my blog:

http://vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com/2004/08/hypertext-links-how-to-compose-them.html







=====
Steven Streight
Web Usability Analyst/Content Writer

http://www.vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com
http://www.streightsite.blogspot.com
http://www.arttestexplosion.blogspot.com
EMAIL: vaspersthegrate at yahoo.com


		
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