If you don’t optimise any link text on your website to provide the best possible user experience, it will let you down when it comes to rankings.

Here’s why and some best practice to follow when it comes to the best type of link text to use.

Link text needs to be descriptive

Link text used on a website must be as specific and obvious to users as possible, particularly those using screen readers.

Non-descriptive, generic link text, such as CLICK HERE and MORE are to be avoided at all costs.

Why is link text important?

The words you use in link text are important for several reasons. Not only to help users understand the links you provide, but to help you get higher rankings for website quality.

Link text helps a user decide whether a link is useful to them or not, and worth clicking through to. The more specific the text, the better decision the user can make about their click-journey.
Without descriptive link text, any user using a screen reader and skimming the page with the TAB key will only hear a series of CLICK HERE’s, if that’s the only link text you’ve used.
Just like a screen reader, Google’s search engine crawlers will only recognise the words CLICK HERE, without being able to determine whether the page you’ve linked to is correct, relevant or useful.

All the above link texts don’t describe the content they link to and are useless to those using a screen reader and to the search engines.

*Read more is acceptable link text for a blog, provided it is set up in the back end of the website to ensure crawlers can understand it relates to the relevant blog.

Never use straight hyperlinks

Using the hyperlink itself as the text link is unacceptable practice in almost every circumstance. Hyperlinks are unreadable to humans and screen readers and look unpleasant on your website – not doing it any favours in terms of aesthetics, or any ranking related issue.

Best practice for link text

Here are some guiding principles for writing effective link text:

Make it descriptive – describe what you’re linking to, e.g.: GET A QUOTE, SEE OUR OFFERS, READ MORE ABOUT IT SUPPORT
Make it accurate – don’t mislead users and promise content/experience you’re not genuinely delivering
Make it unique – don’t use the same link for different destinations
Aim to keep it short – but don’t compromise description
Include keywords, e.g. QUOTE, OFFERS, IT SUPPORT
For link text within body text, keep it under 120 characters
For link text within body text, make it flow naturally, e.g. Now you know more about IT support, find out more about your service options so you can make the best decision for your business.
For link text within body text, make sure it stands out – users are trained to look for underlined text in a different colour to the main body

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