An “embedded link” is a hyperlink within an article.  The purpose of the embedded link is to:

•    Guide the reader to content that is relevant to the article.  For example, linking to sources used in the article or to other articles on a similar topic.
•    Guide the reader to content that is relevant to a term used within the article.  For example, an article about caring for blonde hair might reference the actress Meryl Streep.  The author could create a link off her name to the Meryl Streep fan club site.  Though this is not relevant to the article on hair care, the reader might incidentally have interest in clicking that link and learning from its destination.

Using links effectively in your articles elevates the article from being a standalone body of information to being a resource to the reader that is larger than the article itself.  That is the power of the Web.

Linking guidelines on Helium

Consider the following when including links within your article:
•    The goal first and foremost should be to create a valuable experience for the reader.  The goal is never to place links just for the sake of placing links.  Quality is king.
•    It’s best to link a word that describes where the link is going rather than just say “Go here.”  “Here” doesn’t mean anything to the reader. But “Read more about what linking” does.
•    When finding a good place to link a term to, try to find content on Helium first.  This has the benefit of keeping readers on the Helium site, increasing page views and thus the overall revenue share writers participate in.
•    Yes, it’s all right for you to link to your own articles as long as they are served in context and not called out as being another of your own articles.
•    Spread your links out.  Don’t wallpaper your articles with links as this becomes distracting to the reader.  If your article refers to aroma therapy 20 times in a single page article, there’s no need to link all 20.  Linking the first occurrence should be sufficient.
•    Focus on putting links on the first page of multi-page articles.  Should a reader land on your article and it’s not exactly what he or she was looking for, there’s a chance the linked term will be closer to what they were after.
•    Try to include links “above the fold” on the first page.  “Above the fold” means the part of the article body that is displayed before a user has to scroll down to read more.  This also offers a chance for the reader to click a link if the article turns out to be one they don’t need to finish.

Details of linking to Helium content within Helium

The following are ways you can create links within your article to other content on Helium. Remember the first rule of linking: The link should benefit the reader.

1.    Do you have other Helium articles on the same topic that share the same terms?  If so, linking those terms across your Helium articles achieves two goals: Increases page views on Helium and page views of your personal articles.
2.    If you don’t have other Helium articles to link to, use Search to find other Helium content that may be related.  Find one that works best for you and link to that.
3.    Another way to create an effective link is to link to search results of the term you link.  To do this use the following steps (using aroma therapy as the example).
       a.    Type “aroma therapy” into the Helium search box.
       b.    When the results are listed, look at the results list to confirm that the top 3-5 seem like topics someone interested in aroma therapy would be interested in.
       c.    If so, copy the URL for the search results page from your browser and then link the term “aroma therapy” in your article to that.  Example: http://www.helium.com/search/search?search_query=Aroma+Therapy&search_context=Unknown
       d.    You can also play with fine-tuning the search results.  For example, searching on “aroma therapy mood” and “aroma therapy health” yield different results. One might be more relevant to your article than the other, or perhaps more relevant to the way the term is used in your article.
4.    Sometimes search results for your term of choice include results that are not as relevant. In that case, use Advanced Search to refine.
      a.    Here is a link to the Helium Advanced Search page http://www.helium.com/search/advanced_search
      b.    Once you find a search results list with the first 3-5 links relevant to your article or how the term is used in your article, copy and use that URL for the term’s link.

Positive effects of linking

We ran an experiment on some of the most-hit articles on Helium by placing links to specific search results pages.  The results improved the bounce rate (people leaving a web page and the website instead of clicking through) and page views per visit for users landing on these articles.

These are good examples for how to implement links to search results and how to distribute links through your article.

Bounce Rate: A reduction in bounce rate is a good thing because it means more people either read the next page of the article or clicked on some other link on Helium to continue their experience – meaning they stayed on the site.

Page views per visit: An increase in page views per visit is a good thing because that means, for those people that stayed on the site, they stayed on longer.

Below are the results: