Planet13 - 4:53 pm on Aug 10, 2011 (gmt 0)

I'd say an incontent link makes more sense than a footer link, but worrying about first paragraph or second - that's a waste of time.

On the other hand, I would definitely say that having a link in the first paragraph will drive more TRAFFIC than if it appears in the second paragraph.

I put a link in the second paragraph of my most popular landing page to another page. The clickthrough rate to that other page was around 15%.

When I moved it up to the first paragraph, the clickthrough rate more than doubled to 32%

I don't know why exactly this is so, but that is just what I found out from a single experiment. Your mileage may vary...