Online Newsletters: How to Present Links?

A Contentious reader whose company publishes an online newsletter asked me whether links in such a publication should be embedded in text or clustered at the end. Here’s my perspective…

An “online newsletter” usually means content that is published on a web or intranet site, or by e-mail – and the e-mail can be HTML or text-only. Some online newsletters publish all three ways, so subscribers can choose their preferred option.

A few online newsletters also publish editions for mobile devices, but that’s rather rare since newsletters are generally too long for handy reading on mobile devices. So I’m going to overlook that option here.

In any media or distribution channel, a “newsletter” generally includes several short items or sections – it’s usually not just one long article.

Within those considerations, here are my recommendations for handling links in online newsletters:

WEB PAGES: If the newsletter will be published on the web or an intranet, I think it makes sense to embed the links. This makes the newsletter easier to read, and it makes links easier to understand and use because they appear in context. However, be sure to specify clear and informative link text (not just “click here“). More tips on writing good link text for embedded links.
HTML E-MAIL: When e-mail is sent in HTML format and is viewed using e-mail software that interprets HTML, from the reader’s perspective it’s functionally similar to visiting a web page. Therefore, embed the links.
TEXT-ONLY E-MAIL: Readability is more challenging in text-only e-mail, and embedded links can become confusing in that medium. I recommend that you separate links from content in text-only e-mail. Place the links at the end of the relevant paragraph or section. Include the whole link (”http://” plus all the rest) because in many e-mail clients that makes a URL clickable. If the entire URL is longer than about 60 characters, create a shorter form that won’t break across lines in the recipient’s e-mail software – that problem can cause readers to get an error if they try to cllick the partial link. To shorten the URL, either code a redirect URL on your server, or use a free service such as SnipURL or TinyURL” to generate a unique, permanent, and short redirect address.

Again, that’s just my opinion on it, but I’ve read (and produced) LOTS of online newsletters. In my experience, the strategy I’ve described gives best results.

What’s your experience? Comment below.

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This entry was written by Amy Gahran and posted on January 11, 2006 at 6:03 pm and filed under Real World Writing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment(Latest is displayed first) or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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5 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

Amy

To answer Christian’s question about having a non-descript snipped URL (such as Snurl.com or TinyURL.com), I use http://urlx.org/ (this a similar online service that allows for the first part of the URL to give the user some indication of where on the Internet you are being taken. Give it a whirl!

Seshu

[Reply]

1. Seshu on January 16th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Thanks for the suggestions on this issue - I’m responsible for sending the e-newsletters for my organization and I’ve been looking for ideas about best practices on doing links for a while. Judging from the e-newsletters I receive, there’s no consensus on the best way to do links.

Our audience tends to be older and have older machines and email setups - so in our HTML email I usually leave the URLs visible but clickable. Aesthetically it bothers me but anecdotally we hear from people when we embed the links that they can’t get them to work and without a URL they can’t cut and paste something into a browser. It seems like overkill to both embed the link and list the URL, so we just leave the URLs hanging out.

[Reply]

2. Alicia McBride on January 13th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
I personally prefer to see links embedded in HTML-based emails. Unfortunately, such links are often overlooked in scenarios where the majority of readers are not web savvy. So if the purpose of a link is specific and important — more than just an item of convenience — then we find it sometimes pays to also include the url, spelled out in its entirety. Whether the url is displayed beside the embedded link — in parenthesis, for example — or some other way, it can make a big difference in click-through percentages.

[Reply]

3. Mark Figart on January 12th, 2006 at 11:03 am
That’s a good point, Christian.

Well, for years when I was manually producing the content for my Contentious e-mail alerts, I included SnipURL redirects instead of full-length URLs to avoid presenting links that would break across lines in e-mail readers and therefore fail to function.

That didn’t seem to hurt my readership at all. With each e-mail alert, I’d get lots of clickthroughs.

I do know that most of the people who get my e-mail alerts tend to be one the nongeeky end of the spectrum — that’s why the prefer e-mail alerts to feeds. However, I don’t know how typical their behavior is. Most of those people signed up for my e-mail alerts years ago and I’ve built a history of trust with them.

If you think your e-mail newsletter audience might be concerned about the safety of clicking on redirect URLs, then clarify in the newsletter header what they are. For instance, your header could say, “I used the SnipURL service to create URLs that are short enough to work well in your e-mail reader. However, these links will take you to the correct destination. They are not spam or viruses.”

… I dunno, what do you think about this approach?

- Amy Gahran

[Reply]

4. Amy Gahran on January 12th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Hi Amy! I fully agree with you.

Perhaps some readers are afraid of clicking on a tinyurl-link, because they don’t know which page they are forwared to (in days of spam, viruses and trojan horses, you have to be careful ).

Do you have experiences with tiny links? Or do you know how people can be assured that the link is ok?

Have a nice day,

Christian

[Reply]

5. Christian Spannagel on January 12th, 2006 at 1:54 am