

Which Links Get More Clicks? - ankitoberoi
http://www.adpushup.com/blog/users-select-links-click/

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mistercow
>When current leaks, it would invariably go through the earth wire, the reason
for it being that it offers the least resistance for the flow of current.

Man, I wish people would stop repeating that "path of least resistance" thing
about electricity. It makes it so much harder to understand how electricity
actually works when you've been hearing that lie your whole life. It's also
the kind of misinformation that gets people hurt.

Current flows through _every_ path, always. Otherwise, parallel circuits
wouldn't work.

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ankitoberoi
I wrote the article.

You are correct - Current will flow through all paths, with more current
flowing through the lower-resistance paths - Just like humans :)

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digitalengineer
I liked your insight about the persuit of happiness. Did you know there are
ads designed specifically to help people feel _less guilty_ after thy made an
expensive purchase? (Merdedes does this).

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ankitoberoi
That's quite interesting - not heard of this before. Can you share more
information on this?

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vidarh
I seem to remember Cialdini's "Influence" touches on this (it's a great read
about persuasion and influence in any case)

Basically we have a strong need and desire to be self-consistent, and so we
seek reasons to rationalise our decisions and they don't need to be all that
logical as we try really hard to fill in the gaps. Just present a somewhat
plausible story, and you can make people substantially happier about their
purchase.

A lot of aspirational brand advertising serves to make you willing to spend
money on an expensive product, but also to help you justify the purchase to
yourself afterwards by continuing to give you reasons why you made the right
choice, so that you go tell your friends about your awesome expensive new
Mercedes rather than go around telling them the car salesman tricked you into
buying a car you can't really afford once you've had a chance to think things
through.

On the lower end, those "write 200 words about how much you love X for a
chance to win" competitions are based on a similar principle: They don't care
one iota what you write; but apart from getting your address for marketing
purposes, they also want people to think about positive things to associate
their product with, and commit to them in writing - our need to be self-
consistent makes us feel better about the product as a result and we become
more likely to advocate the brand and be a loyal customer.

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digitalengineer
>Our mind chooses the path of least resistance when it’s given a work. It
would try to find the easiest way to get a job done

Except when the task is _boring_ and you're ordered to perform the task (like
in a boring day job). My DICS-'personality' scan showed I tend to not perform
the task until it is almost to late. Or I tend to find other, more challenging
ways to reach the goal. I have to keep it exciting. There is a UX school of
thought using these profiles as well. I paid for mine, but google'd a bit.
Here is a free one [http://www.123test.com/disc-personality-
test/](http://www.123test.com/disc-personality-test/)

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jaseflow
I love reading this kind of stuff. Can anyone recommend any similar resources?

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lnanek2
Last time I saw someone actually A/B test it, telling users to actually click
in the link text was superior in terms of click through rates. So this article
doesn't seem to be factually based.

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Sniperfish
>when a passage is typographically well structured and design, the readers are
more engrossed in the text

Design vs designed. Pedantic point but it stuck out in that specific sentence.

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ankitoberoi
Thanks! fixed that.

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getty
Good read, but why is CSS linked at the end of the page?

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ankitoberoi
To get a better Google Page Speed score :)

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nemasu
Who knows? I didn't click it.

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Jonathan_Swift
The author's thesis was quite intuitively illustrated by the Google AdSense
"Heat Map", which depicted a schematic of your typical web page, with a
header, navigation bars down both sides, a footer, and some blocks where the
content lay.

Heeding the advice of the Heatmap by placing one's Ad Units in the "Hot Spots"
on one's old pages quite commonly doubled one's monthly revenue.

However the last time I went to look for it at Google's AdSense support site I
could not find it. I don't know whether they moved it or took it down.

For your own purposes, try placing important links at different places on your
pages, leave them there for a week - as the traffic to most sites tends to be
cyclical with a one-week period - then analyze your web server logs so as to
determine how many internal referrals to other pages on your own site resulted
from each link.

I analyze my own logs with Analog ([http://analog.cx/](http://analog.cx/))
which is powerful and configurable but has a steep learning curve. If you
don't have the headspace to Read The Fine Manual, there are many fine
competitors readily available.

Each subsequent week, move each of those experimental links to a distinctly
different place on your pages.

Upon finding the most-effective placement for each link, put all the links in
their best places, then try altering their presentation: text color, typeface
size and style, backround color and the like.

Once you've found the best combination of everything, you will be in a good
position to earn some coin via PPC ads.

I myself for three solid years earned $3,500.00 per month on the average,
$5,000.00 for two different months, with just two Ad Units on just one single
quite lengthy, well-researched piece on copyright law:

Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads

[http://www.warplife.com/tips/law/copyright/music/legal-
downl...](http://www.warplife.com/tips/law/copyright/music/legal-
downloads.html)

Come for the links, stay for the law school lecture.

