It feels right, but it’s SEO wrong. Among other tools, search engines use internal, inbound and outbound links to understand what a web page is all about. Their minion spiders not only crawl the actual linked pages for clues, but they also crawl and analyze the text the makes up the link.
In an ideal SEO world, linked text describes—in keyword-rich terms—exactly where the link points. This straightforward approach spoon feeds keywords to spiders. Not to mention it makes for a more natural, intuitive experience for your web visitors.
If you have “click here” links on your site, correcting the problem involves 10 seconds worth of copyediting. Don’t be lazy, fix it.
Here’s a quick example.
Bad: For more information on Wax’s healthcare marketing services, click here.
Good: Find out more about Wax’s healthcare marketing services.
This technique is a no-brainer for internal and outbound links. But potent, inbound links are a little more tricky. You can’t always control how other websites title inbound links to your site, but you can nudge politely, when appropriate. For example, if you receive a link from a business association or a blog on which you’re an active commenter, you may be able to ask for specific link text.
Otherwise, be sure to give links keyword-rich names on press releases, article submissions, and blog comments—basically any inbound link you can control.
And if you have any doubts as to the power of “click here,” Google it. None of the top search results even contain the phrase. And the No 1. result, Adobe, has close to 550,000 inbound links.
–Caroline Hatchett
