Click Here: Don’t Do It! Why not?

Links in your content should never only say “Click Here” or “Here”.

I have been telling people for 20 years not to use just “Click Here” or something similar as link text but it still comes up as regular as clockwork.

Here is why you should not use link text that has no real meaning:

Imagine you are blind and are using a speech browser that reads out loud to you. A feature to allow scanning of content (rather than hearing it all) is to skip through headings and links and just hear them. So, you hear “Click Here”.

No context so not much use is it!

Links should have descriptive content to help everyone understand what comes next when they follow your link. It is a basic Accessibility requirement.

If you really do want to have Click Here in your link text then at the very least add some descriptive text as well. But Click Here is redundant as people know what links are and how to click on them so why bother?

If you want another reason not to just have Click Here:

It is bad for your SEO.

The search engine uses the link text to understand what comes next as well.

What about Read More or Next?

If used correctly these are fine because they are following on from what you are reading. Whereas the links I am referring to go off on a tangent to associated content.

WordPress, for example, automatically adds links like Read More after an article (Post) taster. But this all works because there is a Title (that is linked), then a paragraph, then the Read More (that is linked).