Is Your Article Linking Strategy Distracting Readers?

LinkingTo some extent, article linking strategy is highly beneficial for well knit content strategy. But if done in excess, distracts readers a lot. And instead of rewards, what you will get you knows that all.

So what will be the outcome, when your article points to uncountable links?

  • Readers will never make it to the end. Whatever zest you have applied writing an article, but they will not read it if there are links in excess which keeps on distracting them.
  • Readers will just roam around through web pages, loitering around through them, sometimes lands up on the web pages which is not of their interest(going off the topic).
  • Your hard work will go in vain, as readers will consider it distracting rather than the intent with which you have written(to make it beneficial to the users).

What`s the issue? Reason behind it? How to check?

  • Read your own content at the time of writing, proofread, and do spend some time reading your older one`s too. Does they leading to the end of article? Are you feeling distracted? Is it going off the topic? Are you really using the links provided in the article?
  • Sometimes individual judgments never makes it to a better decision. So ask your friends to read your blog for you. Ask for the feedback via Readers?
  • Are you using any automated tool to link the articles for you? Check it too.
  • Ask yourself, are you linking the content just for the sake for linking? Just to revive some of your old posts?

If yes, then go ahead for the fix..

  • Keep a check on your plugins used for such purposes, if possible, link articles manually.
  • Do it(the linking) when it is really necessary. Not only it leads the readers to finish the article successfully, but also lets him/her appreciate your work or they will comment their opinion too rather than coming out with no results.
  • Keep the article to the point and use precise linking strategy.
  • Never think that you alone has a archive of great articles, you can also link to the post which your fellow blogger has put an extra effort to expand it more than you do. So do share such articles with your readers. Do not forget our sole purpose is to help our readers and not to distract them.

This Article is written by Amit Sharma, passionate Blogger and Tech Enthusiast who writes at Pcmastero. If you wish to write for us, kindly check this.

11 thoughts on “Is Your Article Linking Strategy Distracting Readers?”

  1. I generally keep links to other articles as low as possible, because I don't want the reader to go to some other link without reading the content on the present page fully.

    But when i go any other blog and encounter links within the article, i just use Ctrl+Click which enables me to open the new link in a new page. Not really sure, how many people does the same.

    So better not to risk too much navigation distracting the readers 🙂

    Good points Amit.

    Reply
    • Thanks Phanindra, I`m glad you liked them.
      And I also use the same strategy(opening the links in the new window) and generally revert to them when I`m done with my current read(another reason for so many active tabs into my web browser) 🙂

      Reply
    • Thanks Ifham, actually I was lurking around through a web site, it`s linking strategy was a bit distracting, which made me write this article. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Great Info!!!!

    Yes one thing is sure content and plugins are play very key role in any of blog post.

    So we should read our content two or three times before post it. and beside that we should use only these kind of plugins which will prove useful for us we shouldn't add too many plugins in our blog post other wise that will not prove good for us to convert good number of traffic.

    Reply
    • I agree to you. The content is the primary reason why readers drop into our site. It can be annoying if they can only see links not the content.That is why we should really consider picking up the best plugins to our posts. Amit has great insights in making tips on how to improve blogging. Thanks!

      Reply
  3. You are right here. Maximum 10 proper links are sufficient in any article. One more clear method to engage reader in your website is related article and post. You can embed them after your post of between your post.

    Reply
    • Even 10 are too much Rakesh, don`t you think so?
      One factor to embed links in the article is the length of the article. Just imagine, 10 proper links in a 250 words article..Will that be a right way?
      And you are right, we can use the alternative to it, and that`s related post widgets.

      Reply
        • Yes Rohit Batra that`s what I said, 10 are too much, and we don`t have to stick to a particular number, just link when it`s necessary, when it is useful. Simple strategy. 🙂

          Reply

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