I’m surprised how often nonprofits write great copy for their website or an email alert, then place a hyperlink on inline text that says, “Click here.” That’s not user-friendly. Instead, make sure your hyperlinks make use of descriptive text — text that tells the user what will happen when they click the hyperlink.
Why are “click here” hyperlinks a problem?
Let’s go back to a fundamental trait of web users: we’re busy, and many of us are viewing dozens if not hundreds of webpages a day. So we generally scan content instead of reading it. When we’re scanning and we see “click here” in a line of text, it’s not compelling.
If you’ve done your design work well, your hyperlinks should be highly visible as a user scans the page (or an email) because of color and text emphasis. If you’ve done your writing work well, what happens when the user clicks on the hyperlink should be just as obvious.
Descriptive hyperlink text examples:
- Buy a gala ticket
- Donate today
- Find your polling place
- Read about our latest immigration victory
- Meet our new director
Non-descriptive hyperlink text:
- Click here
- Click here
- Click here
The other big problem: “Click here” hyperlink text also doesn’t work well with screenreaders, creating accessibility issues for some visitors.
Keep your hyperlink text descriptive and make it easier for your website visitors and email subscribers to know what will happen when they click. More advice about effective hyperlink text:
- The WC3 QA Tipsheet, “Don’t Use Click Here.” (I part company with them on using verbs in hyperlink text — they are not focused on marketing.)
- Smashing Magazine’s “Why Your Links Should Never Say Click Here.“
- Amherst College’s “Make Your Pages Accessible to the Visually Impaired.”