How to Write Effective Website Links
May 4th, 2009First of all, why is this so important? What’s so wrong with click here and see more?
Effective website links draw the eye and spark interest. They encourage clicking because people want more. Click here is an oft overused link term which is nondescript and uninteresting. No one will click anywhere without a good reason. Get a $10 discount for commenting on this blog would entice more clicking ; ) If you want a “sticky” website that offers findable information, you need to write effective links.
Jakob Nielsen recently conducted a study (First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye) based on their findings that web users typically scan a web page in an F-pattern. They tested 80 users understandings of the first 11 characters of 20 different website links. The most effective links followed these guidelines (excerpt):
- Use plain language
- Use specific terminology
- Follow conventions for naming common features
- Front-load user- and action-oriented terms
(Read the study summary here. You can also learn more by signing up for their Writing for the Web course at the Web Usability Conference. If you do any writing for the web for your small business, this is a must-do.)
Notice the F-pattern? People generally read the first few lines in a list and read less as they go down.
I did a quick little test on my own website. Here’s a truncated list of a few of my links:
- Learn more
- See example
- View Resume
- Contact Min
- contact us
- Web Design
- Web Design
- SEO/SEM & I
- Dynamic, In
- Web Analyti
- E-mail Mark
Not too bad. Areas to work on: (1) Learn More and See Example are too generic. (2) And the two links starting with Web Design are two different links, but you can’t tell because they’re truncated. Other than that most links use plain language, are specific, or use action words at the beginning. So I’ll go back a tweak a few of my links.
HOMEWORK: Scan your website’s links (especially ones that are in list format). Without reading the context, can you predict where they’ll take you? Let me know how you make out!
