Comments on: Don’t say “click here.” Include your links in context.

By: Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:42:45 +0000

Barbara,
There is no secret to adding links. When adding in the HTML code you do something like this:

The code surrounds the linked text. The part before the link text shows the url to which the words will link, and the closing "a" shows the link text is ended. In WordPress you'll be able to do this with a WYSIWYG editor, but it's always nice to know the code behind it. Also if doing an e-mail link, that is different. Those look like:

Name

P.S. You need to get yourself a Gravatar! My friend Ari just wrote a good post that explains what those are about. (So we can see your pic instead of the funny monster.) Read: How to Enhance Your Blog Comment: Get a Gravatar

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:25:43 +0000

Thank you Heidi, You have so much to share and I really do appreciate allowing me the opportunity to learn at my own pace. So at the risk of asking you to reveal your secrets, how does one insert a link. What are the mechanics of doing it the proper way without doing the http://www.asasdfasfasfas.cjlk thing? What's the magic formula? Again thank you for your wonderful library! Barbara

By: » SEO and reality: ranking first for ’subaqueous auto racing’ is only impressive if people actually search on that phrase | Web Development Blog: Heidi Adams Cool

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:58:03 +0000

[...] actually appear in my top 10 which surprised me, but these are still logical. I've written posts advising against using click here and against business jargon, and hacool is my Twitter ID. (rt stands for reTweet which means to [...]

By: Okinawa

Okinawa — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 08:59:55 +0000

As the webmaster of an Okinawa Japan site, I can tell you of my frustration of learning about anchor text way too late in the game.

By: Japan

Japan — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:40:41 +0000

I have been a webmaster now of a href="http://www.japanlinked.com">The Japan Travel Guide for only 8 months. But through out the time I never put any thought into the text of my links. Now I feel I have just wasted a lot of time and effort. Thanks a lot for this info. Now to go and try and change my links *Sigh*.

By: Tracey Simpson

Tracey Simpson — Tue, 01 May 2007 18:42:17 +0000

Great advice! As you have said "click here" is not helpful for search engines nor visually impaired users. Many usability studies have also shown that when users scan a web page to find out if it is relevant to them, their eye is drawn to anchor text links. If you don't have relavant key terms in your link text perhaps you may be running the risk of losing visitors because they haven't recognised the subject matter of that web page. Basically, anchor text is important from an SEO, a usability and an accessibility point of view. Another article that may be of interest: Internet Shopping Carts and SEO

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:20:25 +0000

So true, yet many people (including myself until sometime ago) tend to make this mistake. Apart from the SEO consequences the link structure can also make it visible for the reader where he will go if he clicks on the link.

By: HDR

HDR — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 23:49:20 +0000

Because Google regards anchor text as part of its determiner of the content behind a link, click here should never be used, unless of course one doesn't consider the SEO consequence.

By: Respiro, the logo design guy

Respiro, the logo design guy — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:30:22 +0000

The contextual links has a further benefit: they urge the visitor to think contextually. The linked content leads to a new content. We can conclude that a contextual link's value is higher than a non-contextual link's value, as the call to action ["click here"] is replaced by a topic-related and descriptive [key]word or phrase.

By: Heidi Cool

Heidi Cool — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:26:17 +0000

Dawud Miracle over at Healthy Web Design just posted an amusing entry on the "click here" topic which quite clearly illustrates the problem. He used "click here" as the link text throughout the article.