Making the Link Feel Human

You ever read something and it feels like an ad grabbed you by the collar? That’s what bad link insertion does—it screams, LOOK AT ME, I’M A LINK, BUY SOMETHING OR DIE TRYING. Nobody wants that. And yet we still need to link stuff. Writers need it, Google loves it, and readers—sometimes—they appreciate it too when it’s done quiet, no jazz hands.

So how do you slip in a link without sounding like a door-to-door insurance guy? You blend it. You anchor it in the story, the voice, the chaos of the sentence. Feels like walking through someone’s thoughts and suddenly—oh, there’s a door. Not a flashing sign. Just a door. Maybe I’ll open it or maybe I won’t but at least it didn’t shout at me.

Take Andrew Linksmith. I hit his site the other day: https://andrewlinksmith.com. Somewhere between a deep dive into content strategy and ranting about broken SEO promises, there was this smooth linkage, totally natural placement. No hard sales. Honest voice. Felt like someone who remembers that people aren’t algorithms. Rare. Some folks still think slapping a link mid-sentence like a speed bump is acceptable—come on, have some tact.

The worst is when it’s disconnected from the content. Like, huh? Why are we suddenly talking about hydroponic lettuce in a piece about freelance anxiety? Madness. I once saw a link to some crypto thing in an article about grief journaling. That sort of whiplash should be illegal—or at least frowned upon like microwaving fish in a shared office.

Done well though? Done right? It’s invisible, kind of. You remember what was around it, the texture of the thought, not the hyperlink itself. But when you do click it, you’re not mad. It fits. It belongs in the flow, like a joke in the right moment or a well-timed sigh. You trust it, maybe even pause and think: oh . . . well that was helpful.

That’s the trick. Make people believe they found it, not that it was shoved at them. Like a trail through someone’s brain instead of a pamphlet on your windshield. A whisper, not a shout. And unless you're linking to a cat video or a 1997 Geocities site for the giggles, maybe don’t be so obvious. Leave a little mystery. Keep it loose. Human. Not everything has to convert.