Making Your Links Irresistible

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and today I want to talk to you about
something little tiny little tiny skill
that we all are acquiring you know we
were growing up typing was very
important and learning a programming
language was for the crazy people like
me in the computer lab and we were
learning programs like basic and Fortran
and pl-1 and there was no web so there
was no HTML but today learning how to do
websites and just the basics of HTML is
almost a given it’s almost a standard in
fact there’s so many light uses of HTML
you know bolding and italicize the
markup language that makes things look a
little bit different from plain text and
one of those skills is creating links so
we link to things we link to webpages we
link to our profiles we link to our
demos we link to our resumes we link to
a lot of different things and what we
link from is usually text sometimes it’s
an image but often it’s a sentence or a
word or two and what I want to do today
is talk to you about the best practices
for writing that text that adds a link
to go to some other point in your
portfolio of stuff this is called micro
content things like captions under
pictures or words that link to other
parts of a page or other pages or other
items the stuff that’s little short
promos and the sidebars of things it’s a
very different type of writing than
writing long paragraphs of explanatory
stuff or dialogue or that sort of thing
it’s designed to be clear and to be
enticing and to be encouraging and to be
very useful and to that end because we
want clarity and we want usefulness
sometimes we are very complete
in our writing click here to learn more
about my amazing demos you know and you
link the entire sentence so that’s
that’s okay I mean it’s good it shows
you what you want them to do and what
they’re gonna get when they get to
whatever the destination is of the link
but one thing right off the bat to
remember is that more than half of the
activity that occurs on the Internet
today does not occur on a device that
you can click on
a couple years ago there was this
turning point in the acquisition of
content the use of things where more
than 50 percent became mobile I’ve got
my iPhone here my iPad here you know I
have my computer in front of me but
that’s the only place I can click on
something everywhere else I tap so know
that if you write a sentence that says
you know click here to do blah blah blah
there’s a very good chance that you are
telling somebody who is using a mobile
device you are clueless that they’re
using a mobile device or you don’t care
that they’re using a mobile device or
you’re not aware that they’re using a
mobile device so remember click or tap
and click versus tap because sometimes
you create things like for example I
never say click when I write things
about my app rehearsal pro because it’s
always used on a mobile device so things
are constantly changing but let’s get
back to the micro content so if you link
that entire sentence click here to learn
more about my amazing demos it’s big it
tells everybody the whole story and so
what you might want to do is change the
sentence the content that you’re linking
to to say something like here’s how I
make great vo demos ok
you’re not saying click or taps you
don’t have to worry about that and
you’re actually saying oh I’m gonna give
you a process I’m gonna let you hear my
demos and I’m gonna show you what I can
do to make your demos better maybe I
don’t know but it’s an open loop you
don’t know so remember open loops you
gotta go find out right so the whole
sentence here is a second level to go to
after you change the text what about not
linking to the entire sentence because
the sentence can be pretty long so
instead instead of the whole sentence of
here’s how to make your voiceover demos
even better how about just linking the
part that says make your vo demos even
better because that becomes not a how-to
but it becomes an actual statement make
your vo demos even better and that’s
linked that
it’s highlighted it looks different from
the rest of the sentence right so
there’s a couple more levels you can
take it to even better here’s how to
make your vo demo even better is a
phrase that will send them to a place
that’s highlighted and becomes a
statement even better than that how
about you change both the content and
add a second link in the sentence this
is just one example of a million ways
that you can use both open loops and
brevity to make it more enticing for
people to click on the link what if your
sentence read how here’s how to make
here’s how to make the most important
tool you have as a vo artist fantastic
so there you link to the most important
tool and people go oh the most important
– what could that possibly be
so that’s declarative it’s accurate
because it really is and it’s enticing
it makes you wonder what that tool
actually is so then you add to that one
last sort of icing on the cake if you
made the sentence here’s 99 ways to make
damn sure you’re vo demos don’t suck
or here are five examples of why my
voiceover demos are something you should
hear so take the phrase 99 ways or five
examples highlight that because that’s
what they’re gonna get when they get
there and your vo demo doesn’t suck or
my vo demos are things you should hear
just highlight parts of that your vo
demos don’t suck and my vo demo so you
have two links in one sentence and both
of them are open loops it’s like wow
wait a minute this is so important that
there’s two links in this sentence
there’s a lot of stuff that goes on in
people’s heads as they look at something
that they might want to tap on or click
on to link to so you can take it from
the kind of everyday work a day take the
sentence and link to it that’s all you
need to do and really construct your
sentences and the content of the links
themselves to be enticing and maybe a
little mysterious and inviting and still
clear and still accurate but that will
make it that much more likely that they
will click or tap on that link that all
makes sense I hope so I love these
little things I love these little sort
of like micro skills that you can
acquire I’ve often said that doing web
building and doing anything with HTML is
like having a million little different
little paint pots to dip your brush into
and do that and I got to do a link and
they got to do an image and how is its
how is it set up and what are web safe
colors and you know all that stuff so
you’ll learn all kinds of really cool
things and it’s been one of the most
joyous things that I’ve learned in my
life do you make questions about this do
you write micro content for yourself
when you go and make a profile or you go
and link to something do you have the
opportunity built a website you ever
have a web page or when you leave
comments on a site and you create a link
and you can create a link from content
rather than just putting the link itself
out there the HTTP link questions about
that really great exam
fools that you’ve created to do that I’d
love to know I I’m I’m I’m just a fiend
for acquiring you know a catalogue of
really cool things that you can do to
make people’s lives better in terms of
technology tell me so in the comments
below and also tell me if this like
doesn’t you couldn’t care less about
this I mean I’m doing this for the
people for whom it does make a
difference and I’ll do a video for you
someday but tell me if this is like yeah
you don’t add an atom care that’s
nothing that’s not for me if you’d like
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the latest video that I’ve done YouTube
will play it for you I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th I so appreciate you
watching these one-a-day videos that
we’re doing this year and I will talk to
you tomorrow