Avoiding "Click Here" in Your Text Links

 

Whether you are designing websites for an online ministry or for a corporate company, effective hyperlinks can help your visitors access additional information, products, and services. But it's easy to get caught up in the mechanics of a hyperlink and lose sight of the importance of user experience. For this reason, it's important to avoid certain common practices, such as the use of "click here" in your text links.

"Click here" is a phrase that shifts the attention of the user away from the interface and towards their mouse. It implies that they must click with a mouse, which can be a frustrating experience for users who are used to using keyboards or other methods of navigating webpages. It also implies that clicking is the only way to navigate a website, which isn't always the case.

Another problem with "Get more info" is that it doesn't give any context to the link. When a user is scanning a page, they want to quickly locate and understand the purpose of a link. By using "click here" you are preventing them from gaining this understanding by forcing them to search the phrasing surrounding the link to figure out its relevance.

Finally, "click here" doesn't help your search engine optimization (SEO). Google uses the text that surrounds a link to determine how relevant it is. This can cause them to rank pages lower if they consistently use "click here" as their anchor text.

While it may seem tempting to use "click here" on your hyperlinks to save time, it's not worth the risk of sacrificing user experience or SEO. Instead, focus on using concrete and proper nouns to describe the content of your links. This will ensure that your users have a better idea of what they are going to get when they follow the link, and it will also be more user-friendly for those who use assistive technologies. If you would like to learn more about writing accessible hyperlinks, check out our Web Accessibility Checklist. It contains a variety of tips and best practices for creating user-friendly, accessible interfaces. Also, be sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share the latest trends in front-end development and UX design. And as always, if you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to contact us! We love hearing from our readers. Thanks for reading!