What is a link preview?
A link preview is a feature that displays a small amount of information about the page that a hyperlink points to. This information is usually displayed when the user hovers over the link with their mouse cursor, but it can also be shown when the user clicks on the link. The information that is displayed in a link preview can vary, but it often includes the title of the page, a short description, and a thumbnail image. A link preview can help users quickly understand what the linked page is about and decide whether they want to visit it or not.
Examples of link previews
What are the benefits of link previews?
- Improved user experience. Link previews can make it easier for users to understand what the linked page is about, which can help them make more informed decisions about whether they want to visit the page.
- Increased engagement. By providing users with a sneak peek of the linked page, link previews can increase their interest and curiosity, which can lead to higher levels of engagement with the website.
- Improved performance. Replacing iframe embeds with link previews that open the embed on click can improve webpage performance by reducing the amount of data that needs to be loaded on the page.
- Increased traffic. By providing users with more information about the linked page, link previews can encourage them to visit the page, which can increase traffic to the website.
- Improved search engine optimization (SEO). Link previews can help improve the way the website's content is indexed and ranked by search engines, which can make it more visible to users and increase its organic traffic.
- Enhanced social media performance. Link previews can improve the way the website's content is shared on social media platforms, making it more likely to be seen and engaged with by users.
- Better user retention. By providing users with more information about the linked page, link previews can help keep them on the website longer and reduce the likelihood that they will leave the site.
- Improved branding. Link previews can help reinforce the website's brand by highlighting its content and making it more recognizable to users.
- Enhanced credibility. By providing users with more information about the linked page, link previews can increase their trust in the website and its content, which can improve the site's credibility.
- Increased revenue. By improving the user experience, increasing engagement, and driving more traffic to the website, link previews can potentially lead to increased revenue for the website owner.
How to get link previews?
If you are website owner, there are two ways to get link previews:
- Develop yourself. You would need a frontend that displayed the informations about the link and a backend that extracts the necessary information from the linked page. This can be challenging because it requires a good understanding of web scraping and data parsing techniques, as well as strong frontend and backend background.
- Use SaaS service. With SaaS service, like Linkz.ai, you can add 1 line of code to your website and get link previews automatically on the website. The benefits of using SaaS is that you don't need to worry about maintaining extra code base and deal with data parsing for each individual linked website/
