Marketing with Deep Linking
Linking
directly to a site's core pages (deep linking) greatly improves
user satisfaction because they can quickly find specific information
and answers to search queries. Site owners should promote both home
page linking and deep linking as an additional measure to maximize
web site traffic.
Incredibly
some web site owners have filed lawsuits over deep linking and blindly
toss away valuable hot leads preferring that link users only link
to the homepage and never to pages inside the site. The mindset
concludes that bypassing the homepage results in lost advertising
revenue? Personally I would rather have a sale than a click to an
advertiser web site.
The
widely publicized Ticketmaster lawsuit tried to halt other web sites
from directly linking to interior pages so users could buy tickets
to specific shows was settled by a Los Angeles Judge who ruled that
deep links do not violate copyright law, so long as it was clear
who is responsible for the material. In his opinion, the judge compared
hyperlinks to a card index at a library.
Savvy
Internet Marketers understand the value of deep linking and the
targeted search engine traffic it can bring to your web site. Many
site owners actually pay others to deep link to their core pages
via affiliate programs. Studies show that sites employing deep linking
enjoy 25% more closed sales. Deep linking also overcomes navigation
difficulties with users trying to find product information from
the your home page. Visitors arriving via your deep links are also
your hottest leads because of their interest in specific products;
incorporating deep linking is key marketing principal.
Search
engine technologies are constantly improving; Google now has the
ability to index some types dynamic content other search engines
are sure to catch up. If you employ good navigation through out
you're web site and include the use of robot text documents most
of your pages will be indexed making deep links even more valuable.
Enhancing
Deep Linking
Links
are the doors and windows of web sites and bring in fresh air and
new visitors. The homepage is the front door is simply one of many
ways to get in. A good website will accommodate visitors who choose
alternative routes.
Here
are three guidelines for enhancing usability for users who enter
your site at interior pages:
Tell users their arrival point, and how they can proceed
to other parts of the site by including these three design elements
on every single page:
An
example of the third point: I was recently researching a digital
flat-panel monitor at a computer vendor's site. I got there by searching
Google for the monitor model, (which was on a deep link to the
product page) after reading a positive review in a magazine.
Once there, I could not find a link to the specs. Nowhere. Later
in the session, I clicked the breadcrumb for the category page with
all the monitors. There, I found the spec sheet, which was in an
annoying PDF file that contained the specs for all the monitors
scattered across a brochure. This was bad enough, let alone that
this essential selling tool was only available on the category page,
not the product pages.
When
to Avoid Deep Links
In
a few cases, deep links are counter-productive because certain pages
cannot or should not be used before users have passed through higher-level
pages.
An
example could be: an exercise that asks readers to evaluate the
improvements to web site. The exercise consists of two pages:
- an
initial page that explains the problem
- a
subsequent page that provides the solution
If
these two pages are viewed in anything but the proper sequence,
the entire exercise is spoiled. You can never look at a design with
fresh eyes once you know where the usability problems are located.
Thus, anybody who followed a deep link to the page with the solution
would not benefit from the exercise.
It's
easy to prevent search engines from deep linking to a specific page.
Simply include the following meta-tag code in the HEAD part of the
page:
<META
NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex">
Well-behaved
search engines will exclude any such page from their databases.
Deep
linking from non-search sites and from misguided search engines
can be prevented by some fancy server-side programming that checks
whether a user has been to the appropriate higher-level page before
entering the sensitive page. I don't recommend this, however, because
of the high likelihood of getting it wrong and preventing access
by legitimate users. If a third-party website is so stupid that
it links to a useless destination, then it's probably such a bad
site that it has very little traffic anyway.
Deep
linking is your friend: It gets users to their preferred destination
as quickly as possible. Thus, you should only use the "noindex"
meta-tag for pages that users should never visit first.
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