Web Writing That Works!

           A Project of
           The Communication Circle

Guidelines Rants Patterns Poems Services Classes Press Blog Resources About Us Site Map

HomeGuidelines > 3. Cook up hot links. > 3i. Tell people about a media object.> Challenge

 

Diagram

Background

Audience Fit

Challenge

Bonus! Hot Text chapter (94K, PDF, 2 minutes at 56K)

Challenge

Figure out how long a big file will take to download to a user who has your setup.

Take a huge file on your hard disk and send it as an attachment to email to yourself. Count how many seconds (or minutes) it takes to upload to your email service. Then write up a description warning people who have your kind of connection how long it will take, under good conditions, to download that file. Add a description of the content, the file format, and anything else that would help someone decide whether to bother downloading.

Example:

White Paper on Telecommuting. (8 seconds with Cable Modem). An overview of the trend toward telecommuting, with statistics, interviews, and recommendations. PDF format. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader, available from www.adobe.com.)


 

Other ways to make links hot

3a. Make clear what the user will get from the link.

3b. Within a sentence, make the link the emphatic element.

3c. Shift focus from the links or linked-to documents to the subject.

3d. Provide depth and breadth through plentiful links to related information within your site.

3e. Establish credibility by offering outbound links.

3f. Make meta information public.

3g. Write URLs that humans can read.

3h. Make links accessible.

3j. Announce the new with special links.

3k. Write meta-tags to have your pages found.

Resources on writing links

Taking a Position on Links

Heuristic Online Text (HOT) Evaluation for Links

Poster

 

Home | Guidelines | Rants | Patterns | Poems | Services | Classes | Press | Blog |
Resources | About Us | Site Map

Web Writing that Works!
http://www.WebWritingThatWorks.com
 © 1999-2004 Jonathan and Lisa Price
The Communication Circle
Discuss at HotText@yahoogroups.com
Email us directly at ThePrices@ThePrices.com
Order Hot Text (the book) from Amazon