Get 90+ Google Page Speed Score with Swift

As I have been gradually adding more features to my blog here I noticed something that is not widely addressed. At least it never came to my attention before as I was learning about creating the 125 X 125 ads I use in the right sidebar. I have done these ads before and not thought about it either. The common way to write the code for a clickable link behind a graphic or picture closes your blog page to take the visitor to the link they just clicked on.

This is a ‘non-desirable activity’ in my book! Yes, I want them to click on the link, but keep the blog there as well. I want a new page to open for them, leaving the blog page open for them to return to. You want this too, right?  . . . say yes!

You certainly don’t need to allow people to accidentally leave your page until they are ready to. And we all know how many times we get distracted by the links we click on and don’t always go back to the original site when it has disappeared from our browser.

If you click on one of the ads on this blog you will see that it now opens a new window, leaving the blog page sitting right there waiting for you to return. I know you don’t believe me, so try it. Hehe, just for practice, really!

OK, so here is what you do about it. All you need to do is add a little bit more code to the link code you already have for the graphic. All it takes is this —

target=”_blank”

Here is an example of where you place this minor bit of code–<a href=”http://makeinternetmarketingmoney.com/pdf-power-brand” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://www.makeinternetmarketingmoney.com/images/pdf-pb.gif” width=”125″ height=”125″ border=”0″></a>

The thing you must pay close attention to is the quotes ( “ ) see how there is a quote at the end of pdf-power-brand” and the two within the added code, target=”_blank”

The term ‘blank’ is for a new page, you may have seen this before.

It’s interesting to note that as I wanted to figure out exactly how to do this I visited several sites so I could look at their code, and you know what? I couldn’t find one that was doing this. Everyone was letting the new page blow away their page when someone clicked on a link. Sure this may be a small thing, but if you have studied the making of a sales page, the cardinal rule is that you never, never, never – did I say, never? Never provide a link where someone can click off the page and get lost. So why is it not important here with a blog as well?

If someone just landed on your main page and got distracted, heaven forbid, by one of your ad links and got taken away from the blog – got real excited, bought something and never came back. Maybe they don’t come back to receive all the great free content you have, get top know you more, and – well you get it.

So go fix your links that can take people away from your blog and you will feel like you’ve accomplished something – it’s called ‘saving traffic’! It takes effort to get, so take a little more to save it. Help readers get the value you intend for them.

There is a nice site I found that has some great tutorials that help with doing HTML. If you are like me and don’t know it well enough to remember exactly what to do a week later, this site can come in handy. They didn’t have this exact code example there which is why I had to extrapolate a little, but it is a good site for HTML coding help. It’s a resource I will use again, I found it well laid out and easy to use.

http://csshtmltutorial.com/

John Halderman