Pro Tip: Stop using 'click here' in the links on your Web site

We have written that you should never say the word “backslash” when talking about Web addresses. Now it’s time to address another common practice that should be eradicated.

Never use the words “click here” on your Web site, particularly when they are the only words within linked text.

For starters, in the age of phones and tablets with touchscreens, clicking is no longer the exclusive method of interacting with a Web site. Now, some users are tapping.

But beyond semantics, using these two ubiquitous words as a link is a bad practice for helping search engines index and rank your site, especially when linking to your own pages. (Of course, you should be linking to your own pages to help people move around on your site.)

When Google’s search engine indexes one of your Web pages it makes a note of the links and gives particular importance to the words used in the link.

The search engine assumes the linked words have some relevance to the target and will then associate those words with the target.

However, if all your links are only “click here” you are not helping Google learn more about your site. This becomes a problem for your page rank. Google sees that the page is important enough to link to, but doesn’t have anything relevant in the link to help boost that page. So, make sure you describe the page with your link.

The proper practice is to make the actual link a noun or phrase that describes what your users will get if they click the link. Links should be relevant.

So, no more links with click here or learn more or read this. It might be a hard habit to break, but if you love your page rank it will be worth the effort.

Creating Quality Links

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