Why avoid ‘Click here’ links?

Describe what readers will find if they click

Google finds 25 billion instances of Click here and Read more on the web. It finds 12.8 billion instances of Learn more, 13 billion instances of Get Started, 6.8 billion instances of Next article, and 5 billion instances of Previous article.

While some of these may not be links, most of them are. And that’s a problem, says Katie Sherwin, a user experience specialist at Nielsen Norman Group.

Remember Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal? Your Click here link does.

Generic link text like Click here, Read more and Get Started make web pages harder to skim, reduce clicks, hurt SEO and don’t work on mobile devices.

Why avoid generic links?

When it comes to link writing, Click here is so 1996. We’re talking 14.4k modems, a CompuServe account and the Spice Girls singing “Wannabe” on your portable electronic device, aka a Sony Discman.

Remember Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal? Your Click here link does.

Besides being dated, what’s wrong with links like Click here, Read more and Get started? These generic links:

1. Make it harder to skim.

Because link text is blue and underlined, visitors can easily scan links. No wonder links and other clickable elements make up nearly half of all “eye stops,” according to EyeTrack III, a Poynter Institute study.

“Users look for links on pages like puppies look for your best shoes,” write Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton and Jakob Nielsen in How People Read on the Web.

But when web visitors skim a generic link, it’s basically a wasted effort, write Pernice et al. Generic links require people to read extra words to determine the link’s meaning. Remember, the folks are skimming for a reason: They don’t want to read.

2. Reduce clicks.

Before clicking a generic link, visitors pause to ask two questions: 1) “Where are you taking me?” 2) “Is this a new link, or are you sending me to the same page over and over again?”

This uncertainty causes cognitive strain, which hurts the visitor’s experience on your web page. It can also cause visitors to hesitate or even feel paralyzed by your web page.

3. Reduce clicks even more on mobile.

These problems are “even more important on mobile devices, when every extra click delays the user significantly,” write Raluca Budiu and Jakob Nielsen, authors of User Experience for Mobile Applications and Websites.

If you saw a road sign that said, Go here, Drive more or Road sign, would you follow it? Probably not. And if you saw a link that said, Click here, Read more or Link, would you click it? Probably not.

Remember Fat Fingers/No Bars Syndrome: Mobile readers already click 40% less often, according to MailChimp. Don’t compound that problem by writing generic link text.

“Meaningless links such as Next article or Previous article may be easy to generate automatically, but are too vague — the links should contain the title of the story and possibly a summary. A link labeled Learn more is too vague, and does not tell users whether the content on that page will be worthy of learning.”

4. Reduce SEO benefits.

Search engines use anchor text as an additional cue to what the page or document is about, according to usability expert Jakob Nielsen. Unless your search term is Click here or Read more, you’re wasting your search engine optimization efforts on these generic links.

5. Don’t comply with The Americans With Disabilities Act, or ADA.

Where sighted users read the text of the link, visually impaired users use a screen reader to hear a list of links.

Make sure your web designers know: If all your links say Click here, Read more and Get started, how is a visually impaired person to decide which to click?

Worse: Your site will not be in compliance with the ADA.

6. Fail to sell the link.

If you saw a road sign that said, Go here, Drive more or Road sign, would you follow it? Probably not.

And if you saw a link that said, Click here, Read more or Link, would you click it? Probably not.

Writing Click here or Read more link text is like writing Buy this for an ad. They’re calls to action, sure. But not very persuasive ones.

Think of your link as a road sign. Like a road sign, the best links are clear, complete and self-contained.

“Links should have good information scent,” writes Marieke McCloskey, a user experience specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. “That is, they must clearly explain where they will take users.”

Writing Click here or Read more link text is like writing Buy this for an ad. They’re calls to action, sure. But not very persuasive ones.

Why should I click, read or buy? That’s your link copy. That’ll get users to click.

7. Add clutter to the page.

Every time you write Click here, Read more or Get started, you’re adding at least two extra words to your web page. That clutter makes it harder for visitors to pick out salient information, write Pernice et al.

In fact, sometimes it’s so hard to deal with extraneous clutter that visitors often abandon cluttered pages.

How to avoid Click here links

So how can you drag these 1996 links into the 21st century?

1. Focus links on the topic, not on the action.

Instead of focusing on the action — aka Click here or Read more — focus on the topic. Don’t tell web visitors to click; write descriptive links that tell them what web content they’ll find if they do click.

Don’t	Do
To learn to write better links, click here.	Learn to write better links.
To download Dreamweaver, click here.	Download Dreamweaver.
“Next year will be our best ever,” says President Phoebe Ishere. Read more …	“Next year will be our best ever,” says President Phoebe Ishere.

Notice how focusing on the topic lifts the idea off the screen, promises the reader a benefit and slenderizes the sentence.

2. Don’t write about mechanics or the system.

Click here and Read more have some ugly cousins: URLs, email addresses and other references to the mechanics of the web.

You wouldn’t write, Turn page in a publication. Why write, Point your browser at online?

Link writing don’ts
Don’t refer to mechanics
●       Click here ●      Go to this page ●      Visit this site ●      Point your browser at ●      Hit your back button ●      Select this link	●      Internet, intranet ●      WWW ●      Browser ●      Page ●      URL ●      Computer ●      Server ●      Email addresses

A new blog about Twitter addiction includes tips, Q&As and personal recovery stories. Visit the blog at StopMeBeforeITweetAgain.com.

Write:

A new blog about Twitter addiction includes tips, Q&As and personal recovery stories.

3. Write links that stand on their own.

Visitors scan headings, bullet, digits, capital letters, buttons and links. Many visitors don’t read the adjacent content.

Make the context of the link understandable without further reading.

Instead of:

Carlson also wrote a column about the Holocaust oratorio in today’s Register. Read the piece online.

Write:

Read Carlson’s column about the Holocaust oratorio in today’s Register.

4. Write complete links.

When your links are too short or incomplete, readers have to go back and read the surrounding words to understand the link. But readers should be able to understand your link without reading the rest of the text.

So write links that stand on their own. What would you say in the link if you knew it was all the customer would see?

After all, you wouldn’t click links these links without knowing more about them, would you?

• Video
• Piece
• Says
• Covered
• Too Much
• Karl Deisseroth
• Weed

No more Click here links

“If you find yourself relying on Learn more or Read more as standalone link labels, remember that they create uncertainty for users and are bad for accessibility,” Sherwin says. “Add descriptive keywords and make your link labels more informative and enticing to users.”

Even better: Why not just avoid the words Click here, Read more and Learn more for link text?

Link writing resources

Learn how to:

• Write links that aren’t too long or short
• Polish your link writing
• Avoid overlinking
• Format links
• Write press release links

___

Sources: “Impact of Mobile Use on Email Engagement,” MailChimp, Aug. 8, 2017

Raluca Budiu and Jakob Nielsen; User Experience for Mobile Applications and Websites: Design Guidelines for Improving the Usability of Mobile Sites and Apps; 3rd edition; Nielsen Norman Group; 2015

Aurora Harley and Kim Flaherty, “‘Get Started’ Stops Users,” Nielsen Norman Group, Aug. 20, 2017

Marieke McCloskey, “Writing Hyperlinks: Salient, Descriptive, Start with Keyword,” Nielsen Norman Group, March 9, 2014

Kara Pernice, Kathryn Whitenton, and Jakob Nielsen; How People Read on the Web: The Eyetracking Evidence; Nielsen Norman Group; Sept. 10, 2013

Katie Sherwin, “‘Learn More’ Links: You Can Do Better,” Nielsen Norman Group, Dec. 13, 2015

Dimple, let’s do plain white with rules instead of colored tables. Please use H5 for heading, H6 for column headers. Please fix awkward spacing here.