You should follow me on Twitter | Dustin Curtis

Another interesting experiment linking phrasin, persuasion and clicktrough rates. How you word something does have a substantial effect on how people will respond. Will they click your link, or click back?

Curtis found that using the phrase “You should follow me on twitter here” provided the best clickthrough rate in this experiment. It’s interesting that using the word “here” as a link provided the best results. I typically don’t like to set up links in that manner because “here” is ambiguous. “click here” could be anything. In terms of search engines it is good to have descriptive words for links to sort of label what the link is pointing to. But it may be the case that users are simply more comfortable clicking on a link that says “here” instead of “twitter”…

“At the very least, the data show that users seem to have less control over their actions than they might think, and that web designers and developers have huge leeway for using language to nudge users through an experience. •”

And a link to the HN discussion has some more interisting insights into this experiment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=704738

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You should follow me on Twitter | Dustin Curtis

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