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Being self-employed, I rely on the internet to bring clients to me. When they do find me, I want to make it as easy as possible for them to contact me. One way to do that is to insert hyperlinks to my chat ID's.

A hyperlink is just a link that a person can click on that will instantly open the correct chat window with the person's chat ID already in place.

The benefits - less clicking for the other person, less emails asking for my chat ID. They can just click on the relevant chat link and begin typing an instant message to me.

If you'd like a live demonstration, you can go to the contact page [No Longer Available] of one of my websites and click on a link in the chat box.

Here are the chat hyperlinks that I know of. Just enter your username where it says USERNAME and then copy and paste the whole bold line into your website / forum / chat signature, whatever. Then when someone clicks on it, they can instantly send you a message. You can also change the "send me a message" line to something else if you'd prefer.

I was unable to find a hyperlink for ICQ so if anyone can provide one, I would be grateful.

Windows Live Messenger : <a href="msnim:chat?contact=USERNAME">Send me a message</a> (the username in this case being the Hotmail address)

Yahoo Messenger : <a href="ymsgr:sendim?USERNAME">Send me a message</a>

AIM : <a href="aim:goim?screenname=USERNAME">Send me a message</a>

Google Talk : <a href="gtalk:chat?jid=USERNAME">Send me a message</a> (the username in this case being the Gmail address)

Skype : <a href="skype:USERNAME?chat">Send me a message</a>

Does anyone know any other chat program hyperlinks? Let us know in the comments.