Learn more, read more, you have probably seen it a million times. Those little links that allow you to read additional information. Those little links are great, and if you are not using them already, now may be the time to start.

An Example

Here is a classic example of the “Learn More” link being used well, Business Process Improvement. It’s a link to Lombardi’s Products page. Their services (Business Process Management) are neat upon themselves. BPM is one of the many things my wife specializes in.

If you look at their products page though, you will find that all of their headings have just a small bit of information followed by the “Learn More” links. Why not put the information there to begin with? Well if you are a SEO person you could probably come up with a bunch of reasons, but if you forget that stuff, there is a better reason. It’s hard to get people to read your content.

Getting Them to Read

Back in May, Jakob Nielsen released a report that found only about 28% of your content is read, and that is was really more like 20%. Scary thought if you own a blog, and like to rant. Another study made by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services back in 2006 found that, you are pretty much wasting your time writing a paragraph longer than six sentences. Headers, paragraph breaks, and division of content is imperative in maintaining the visitors attention. Visitors skim, and they do this by looking for the easy read.

Learn More, Keep it Simple

Knowing this you can find the beauty of using links like “Learn More”.  By using them, you are able to increase the options for your visitors in hope you can display something they like while at the same time, giving them the option to read more when they find their gold. It’s the “Keep it simple” technique, and gives true meaning to the term “Less is more.”

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