Tips for Web Authors
Things that everyone building websites needs to know.
1. Don't "Click Here"!
Using "click here" as the text for links is close to the top of the list of "All-Time Dummy Mistakes in Web Design". It shrieks "amateur". For many reasons. Here are a few of them.
Link text should contain meaningful information about where the link goes in order to help the user decide whether or not they want to follow it.
"Click here" tells them nothing.
Don't presume that all visitors will read all the surrounding information telling them why they might want to make the effort of clicking there and loading a new page.
Many will be looking for specific information and will just glance down a page to see if there's a link which looks like it will help them find it. If your visitor speed-scans your page and sees half a dozen links all saying "click here", they're likely to think it's too much like hard work and go somewhere else.
That's also why links should always be clearly identifiable as links.
If you really want people to use your site, then don't make it difficult for them!
You're insulting your visitors' intelligence.
Let me put this gently - how likely do you think it is that there is still anyone anywhere on the planet using the WWW who doesn't know by now what a link looks like and how to use it? Don't insult your visitors' intelligence by telling them what a link is or by giving them instructions on how to use their browser to follow it, use the link text to give them some kind of clue about what they'll find at the other end of it!
Example.
Dummy : "Click Here for more information about me"
Better : "More information about me"
And look - you just saved your fingers three words unnecessary typing! More importantly, you've preserved the sense of your text by avoiding disrupting the reader's attention with silly nonsense about what a link is and how to use their browser.
You're presuming you know what the user's setup is.
Your visitor may not be using a mouse.
Does that surprise you? Why? Many web users navigate via their keyboard, for a whole variety of reasons. So "click here" is meaningless to them.
Try to be user-friendly. Don't tell someone using a keyboard to "click" unless you really want to look like an idiot.
It's sloppy.
It yells loudly that the site was built by a beginner who either didn't really understand what link text is for or simply couldn't be bothered figuring out some useful intelligent informative text to put there.