Every Page Is Page One by Mark Baker

Author:Mark Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: term-1, term-2, term-3, term-4
ISBN: 9781937434281
Publisher: XML Press
Published: 2013-04-29T04:00:00+00:00

-- “Why On-Site Searching Stinks”

You still have to provide appetizing content at the end of your links, of course. Each link should point to a good Every Page is Page One topic that supports the reader’s purpose for selecting it. Providing useful links to good content will make your readers’ lives easier and reduce the temptation for them to leave your content.

Therefore, links play a larger role in EPPO content than cross references or footnotes play in books. You should be thinking of links not as citations or references but as the natural expression of every significant subject affinity in your content.

In particular, there are two important reasons why your context-setting material should be rich with links:

First, readers are most likely to discover that they lack qualifications while they are reading your context-setting material. The context-setting section, precisely because it locates the topic in its subject area, is rich in subject affinities. If those subject affinities are linked, they will supply much of what your readers need to become qualified.

Second, search, and other methods of finding content, can be imprecise, because of both the limits of search engine technology and the limits of readers’ skills in framing search terms. This imprecision may land readers on your topic when they really wanted a related topic. Linking to contextually near topics gives readers the means to travel the last mile to the content they really need.

Links are also important for those who have eaten but are hungry for more. Links along lines of subject affinity make it easy for them to find their next meal. Of course, you can’t tell readers what they should do next. It is their curriculum, not yours. Link along lines of subject affinity and let readers choose which road to take.

A systematic approach to linking along lines of subject affinity is critical here. As Sean Carmichael notes, summing up a keynote presentation by Jared Spool:

Websites are full of links. How useful these links are in helping users complete tasks is another story. Links have to guide users as they follow the scent of information. A vague or confusing link often leads users down a wrong path and in turn increases their rate of failure.

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