Web Site Linking Loses Visitors and Money

06-05-2006
by John Saya

You might not realize it, but if you're linking to any other web site other than your own, then you're losing visitors and sales. These are called external links and can cost you lots of money when you're not doing it right.

Here are just a few examples from popular web sites explaining how linking to other web sites can hurt your web site, your profit, and the focus of your web site.

• Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., of useit.com says..."Opening up new browser windows is like a vacuum cleaner sales person who starts a visit by emptying an ash tray on the customer's carpet...Designers open new browser windows on the theory that it keeps users on their site...Users often don't notice that a new window has opened, especially if they are using a small monitor where the windows are maximized to fill up the screen. So a user who tries to return to the origin will be confused by a grayed out Back button."
  
  
• WebSiteTemplatesFreaks.com lists seven reasons why web sites fail. Their #4 reason is... "Websites fail because of too many banner ads, colors, flashy text or external links.".
  
  
• KarlCore.com explains how a test performed showed... "those who think that opening a new window will help keep the user from "losing the [original] site", the real effect is exactly the opposite... With the new window completely covering the original site, they did not notice that they had two (or more) windows open. In an attempt to return to the original site, they repeatedly hit the back button. When that didn�t work, they totally closed all browser windows and completely started over.".
  
  
• Trent Moss of FWZone.com describes five reasons why opening new windows and linking to other web sites is not a good thing to do. His #3 reason states... "Opening a new browser window can be disorientating for very novice web users and for those who are visually impaired. They might not realise that a new window has opened and might struggle switching between windows."

But, you need to link to relevant content, and other web sites to give your visitor's useful information to navigate through, and to lend credibility to your own web site. So how do you do this? You keep them on the same web page on your web site.

Now you might ask, if I'm linking to another web site, how do I keep the visitor on my web site? You can do this many different ways, such as by using FRAMES, and IFRAMES.

For example, you could link to another web site using an IFRAME by adding this code to your web page:

<IFRAME SRC="http://www.newwebite.com" WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=200></IFRAME>

But this requires programming knowledge, can be confusing to set up, and possibly change your current web site layout.

If you're not a professional web designer, or just want a fun, easy, and clever way to show other web sites on your own web pages without losing your visitor, then you should get StickySite.



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