Don’t Click Here! – Placing Links in Context
If you’re interested in reading this article, click here. On second thought. Don’t.
It’s a common usability problem. Links that don’t mean anything. How are you using links on your website?
I’m a firm subscriber to the idea that wherever possible, web writing should flow just as naturally as books. “Click here” and “Follow link to story” are speed bumps to readability. If the links are clear enough, a user should not have to be instructed where to click.
It’s easy to be writing site copy and link to another location with a “Click here for more” link at the end of the sentence. I’m certainly guilty of it, but this is an often unnecessary step. Since you’ve already written something, why not use that text for the link instead?
Three Common Approaches
Consider the following variations of a sentence and (inactive) link.
- At the auto show, a brand new car was released today. Click here for more.
- At the auto show, a brand new car was released today (www.sourceurlhere.com).
- At the auto show, a brand new car was released today.
Which one of those three sentences would you read in a book? The first and second items are typical in online writing and simple enough to understand, but would almost never be found in other mediums.
Option one presents a sentence, followed by an ambiguous link for more information. Option two also presents the sentence and then a sort of citation for the source URL of the content. In both cases there is extra text involved to provide a link. This is not the case for the third. Option three is the only one whose content would remain unchanged if a link was not involved.
It isn’t natural to have a “Click here” spacing out sentences. This breaks the flow of reading. Placing the link inline with the text is unobtrusive, and increases readability. This is not a telegram. We do not need a “stop” to declare the end of a thought. I think a lot of people make the mistake of making a distinction between web writing and offline writing. In reality the formatting is much more alike than realized.
What does it mean?
Using links in context let the content surrounding it describe the end result. It allows a person to write naturally and then add reference links in where appropriate afterwards. In most cases, there is no reason to insert any additional text in order to create a link. Use what you already have. The average user will probably not care what the full URL of the target website is, or what the recommended action is, only that it has content they would be interested in.
This will also help remove the confusion of where a link goes, and what content it is associated with. This is true for download pages as well. When a link titled “Download Now” is placed at the bottom of a page, a visitor may not know what exactly is being downloaded without reading the rest of the content. This is not redundant, it’s reassurance.
They’ve been trained already
The internet has been training people for years now to recognize hyperlinks. You will not be throwing visitors off by opting out of the “Click here” instruction. If you have doubts about this, take a step back for a moment. You are one small point on the internet. The responsibility does not have to fall on you. Let other sites be the training ground while you focus on building a more usable page for the rest of the internet.
Nobody wants to click a link only find something they weren’t expecting.
Direct users intuitively
Let’s revisit the example from before.
- At the auto show, a brand new car was released today. Full coverage can be found over on the Car Magazine website.
With the above link, where would you reasonably expect to end up? With this wording, we are adding further direction to the link, but it can still be read without hyperlinks. This is a good check. Would your writing seem awkward or incomplete if there were no links in it? Could it be printed without major adaptions?
A user shouldn’t have to backtrack in a sentence to discover what a link’s contents is. Give them a sense of direction. As long as a reader can figure out where a link is headed, they will figure out the rest.
You’re also looking at an added bonus for search engines. “Click here” links offer little help for SEO, because they will almost never help to describe the content of the link. The title property will only help so much if the link text is irrelevant. The text “Car Magazine website” gives a much better point of reference than a vague “Click here” action.
It’s important to remember that this is only a guideline to strive for. It may not always be possible, but it’s an easy way to improve usability on your website. It’s not a terribly hard habit to break, and can save you plenty of words in the long run.
Interested in reading more about link usability? Here are a few great posts from around the internet that expand on the subject: