There has always been a debate around whether or not one should use the words ‘click here’ as link text. On the one hand, we know usability experts strongly advise against this since the link is not descriptive enough.
While on the other hand some copywriters have exactly the opposite opinion and showing ‘click here’ is perfectly acceptable. The counter argument is that you will get better results if you tell the person exactly what you what them to do. Now if we throw in the fact that SEO gurus prefer links that contain keywords optimized for the page we have a real situation on our hands
So who’s right? The answer is all of them.
From a usability perspective it is true that the link should be descriptive and understandable to the user. It is also true from a marketing a copyrighting standpoint that telling the user what you want them to do produces better results. And we know that providing keywords in the links help with search engine optimization.
With all of these statements being true what would happen if you combined both the action word with the content related words to form a link such as:
Click Now to Subscribe to Our Design Blog
A link shown in this way solicits the action the user should take, Click Now, Subscribe tells them what the purpose of the link is for, clearly indicating the goal of the link and Design Blog is the optimized phrase.
The length of the link falls within the 7-12 word range, desirable when try to produce good information scent. Personally however, I think the link could be shortened and still be affective.
The action we want the user to take is to subscribe, the click here seems to be redundant since that is the typical action one does with a link. However, I can see how it provides a stronger call to action.
The lesson in all of this is to make sure the your links are understandable to your users. Whether you use ‘Click Here’ or something different if the users aren’t clicking then chances are they aren’t finding what they are looking for.