Keep Your Reader From Linking Out
Strategies for Writers: How to Effectively add Reference Links
Don’t we all hate those pesky ads that disrupt our sacred YouTube watching time and those sneaky sponsored ads that creep into our apps and feeds? So annoying!!!
It’s a trap. These media platforms want to constantly pester us to make us pay for their premium model or entice us to buy something we don’t need. We have no choice but to patiently endure them and stay tuned until the broadcast resumes. The Content Maker is the master and the Viewers are their slaves.
It’s a different relationship when it comes to Writers and Readers. It is one based on trust, support, encouragement, and camaraderie. The Writers lead with their content, and the Readers follow. But we forget this when we employ some marketing strategies in our writing. The most prominent is when we add links to reference materials and affiliates in our post.
If I place this link here and inform you that there is some awesome content out there that you must read because it is somehow relevant to this post, I just gave you the eject button. Even if you don't use it, it causes a distraction and that’s detrimental to me as a Writer. What I want you to do is to read this post in its entirety and then maybe scroll back to find that link, which is also a bit inconsiderate for expecting the reader to do all this extra stuff.
Don’t place that link. Don’t click that link. There is a better way for both parties. I call it “Post Credits”.
Writers must certainly allude to important reference materials within the post itself but instead of linking it then and there, talk about it at the end of the post where you have your call to action. Don’t take your Writers hat off even then. There is an example of this non-distractive linking strategy in the post-credits.
Your online writing should mimic the way Authors write books. Their references are superscripted and added to the footnotes of the page. What would have happened to our precious paperbacks if the publishers decided to place blurbs of sponsored content in the middle of those pages, and to remove them we had to purchase the more-expensive hardcovers. Thank God we didn’t go there, although Amazon Kindle is trying to do something like that with their ad-supported cheaper kindles. To that, I say: “You are pathetic, Amazon. But I still love you and can’t live without you”.
So, stay on course and write with your Reader in mind. Thanks for tuning in.
Post Credits
In a recent post called, “Elon Musk Needs Us” you will notice that I did not add the link to the actual Ted Talk anywhere but at the end. If I had it embedded in the post, there was a good chance my reader would have linked away. We all know one Ted Talk will lead to another and I would’ve lost that reader for all eternity. Here is the link to the post to see for yourself. Note that I strategically placed this link at the end of this blurb after I set the context.
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