Ashley

I’ve not seen anything in the SEO literature to indicate whether the position of links is significant, other than in a relative sense: the first link on a page tends to get clicked more frequently. But I’ll certainly be looking out for it more.

I tend to use different conventions depending on the context. On commercial websites I always leave links until the end. The effect of carefully crafted copy is destroyed if someone clicks elsewhere halfway through it. If they reach the end of the copy, however, the effect is complete and there’s a handy link taking them to the next stage of your strategy.

With blog entries, though, I’ve approached it differently. Since they are much longer and less tightly focused on calls to action I’ve felt happy peppering them with relevant links where appropriate, almost like the photos and illustrations alongside a print article. But I must admit I like your idea of ‘footnote links’. Not only do they prevent distractions but they actually provide stronger opportunities for SEO-friendly anchor text.

In fact I might even experiment with a footnote approach, using numbers as page anchors to the link list at the bottom.

Out of interest, I wonder if search engine algorithms factor the position of links into their calculations?

Thanks for some interesting ideas!