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Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?

copyblogger.com — I’ve always been a big proponent of having actionable anchor text for links when I really want someone to click. From a copywriting standpoint, it ’s a no brainer—it’s been proven time and time again that if you want someone to do something, you’ll get better results if you tell them exactly what to do.

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  • markus941, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16It's like having a long sales letter - seems archaic to those who "know" how the interwebs operate, but still effective - even if we don't want them to be.
    • modusop, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I remember this study- something like a graphical, full-bleed sales ad did worse than a plain page of block text. Very strange indeed.
  • FreakyD, on 10/10/2007, -10/+8OMG, I can't believe I clicked this link
    • wbagdon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3i had to fight the urge to click the link at the end of the article that said "Click here"
    • DummyO, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Ha ha - I had to go back to find the link because I was looking around the mention of the Shapa (or whatever) article reference.
  • Onemorecup, on 10/10/2007, -10/+2Great read that has inspired me!
  • suxmonkey, on 10/10/2007, -10/+3Hmmm, I would say: there are things even more clickable than "click here." My own (albeit flawed and subjective) tests regarding this have taught me that anchor text like "absolutely amazing videos" or "scandalous sources" and so on have higher CTR than "click here." Still, it's an interesting argument and "click here" is certainly better than bland and boring anchor text anyday.
    • ielliott, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2If you were really testing, you'd see that "Click here to view absolutely amazing videos" would get a higher click rate than without using 'click here' in the link.
    • AlexFerny, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"Click here" just looks *****

      You should use a more fitting phrase for the link, say to read full article after preview the link should be "full article", for next page it should be "next page", if its to order something it should be "add to basket" or "click to buy", if its to see more information it should be "more" etc
      • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0You didn't understand the article. The point is, when you use the "click here" not only do you get the experienced internet surfer, but you also get clicks from people who don't know how to tell a link from blue text.
  • str3ama, on 10/10/2007, -1/+41Well back in the 90s (a horrible way to start a sentence), click here was one of the best ways to draw users attention. But then after heavy use it lost its power, since everything was click here - "click here for viagara" "click here to sign up for spam" "click here for never-ending popups". Nowadays we use "Warning" or "[pic] / breaking news / Ron Paul", how long till those solicit no response?
    • perkonis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+24I'm hoping it will happen by this Friday.
      • str3ama, on 10/10/2007, -3/+1What's so special about this Friday?
        • perkonis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5With any luck it will be the day that "Warning" ,"[pic]", and "Ron Paul" cease to have any effect as sensational headlines.

          Other than that, nothing.
    • juicebag, on 10/10/2007, -3/+4Or "GOVERNMENT IMPLANTS RFID CHIPS IN ARRESTED PROTESTERS!"
  • monkeycatDx, on 10/10/2007, -1/+12Curiosity gets the best of us.
  • sockpuppets, on 10/10/2007, -18/+4Don't click here.
    http://dzap.notlong.com
  • chicoer2001, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11I think the horrible neon color text is a good indication of clickable text.
  • kpkbaja, on 10/10/2007, -17/+2Master Chief dies at the end of Halo 3
    • astromodder, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11***** you
    • juicebag, on 10/10/2007, -1/+16Actually, he dies many times in every Halo game, unless you're really, really good.
  • mpn401, on 10/10/2007, -0/+35"Don't click here."

    Works wonders because it's something people aren't supposed to do.
  • Bobski, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17"Click Here" went out of style in 1998. Apparently no one read the memo.
    • pikpikcarrotmon, on 10/10/2007, -1/+20I never read that memo. Nobody told me where to click.
    • ibolt, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I'm not getting my memo's.
    • cjellibebi, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"Click here" is an abomination that never should have gone into style in the first place!

      See my post below for more details.
      • brownspank, on 10/10/2007, -2/+1Now, if you had said, "Click here for more details," I would've gone ahead and did so.
    • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0But, as long as they finish their TPS reports, they won't have to come in on Sunday.
  • friendlyman, on 10/10/2007, -8/+2don't click! viros!
  • friendlyman, on 10/10/2007, -11/+0Don't click! virus!
  • jnadke, on 10/10/2007, -6/+5If someone needs to be told where to click, do you really want them visiting your site?
    • tech42er, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5Yes. They're not using AdBlock Plus. ;)
    • Mononuclear, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2depends on the site. If it's an ecommerce site then yes you do. Stupid people spend lots of money so you need to make things very obvious for them
    • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Hits are hits, regardless of who visits.
  • truegodofwar, on 10/10/2007, -3/+24How to make a digg user "click here"....

    Best Pics you will see all day! Kevin Rose and Ron Paul use Ubuntu Linux to hack their iPhones! (click here)
    • justinjacobs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13I clicked and nothing happened.
      :(
  • xxtez, on 10/10/2007, -7/+2Don't click, EDIT YOUR POST!
  • MatthewTheRaven, on 10/30/2007, -1/+19My only real problem with "Click Here" is that it violates the idea of proper hypertext altogether. A link should really be self-describing. "Click here" tells you nothing about the content to which you're being linked.

    Unfortunately, how do you get away from making things for the lowest common denominator? Instead of making the users smarter, every metric seems to show that you're better off to make your site dumber. Clean site design? Fewer users. Contextual hypertext? Fewer clickthroughs. What do you do?
    • bobartig, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4whats also unforgivably bad is sites like engadget.com, whicj use an inscrutiable approach of hiding "something" behind an image. Sometimes its the most important link on the article. Sometimes its unrelated entirely. Sometimes clicking on thelink does nothing at all. The important thing to note here is that the user is forced to guess because they have no idea where the link is, or what it will do. This willful lack of meaningful interface completely flies in the face of making an usable site.
    • Mononuclear, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4You can have the best of both words with links like "click here for information about XXX" then it tells people to click and you also get the added bonus of SEO. Longer links tend to look less attractive but you can fix that with site design.
      • RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3No, you can fix it with CSS:
        a:before { content: "Click here "}

        Of course, that wouldn't work in IE - where a majority of the retards exist.
    • Nougat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3It's really not about dumb vs. smart. It's about human nature and how the brain works. I don't know the details about this specifically, but I'm sure it's analogous with things like "people can only hold about seven discreet things in their mind at the same time."
    • freakystyley, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I think you can have the best of both worlds by simply linking both the "click here" as well as the descriptive text, as opposed to linking most of the sentence as Mononuclear suggests. For instance (quotes denote the links):

      "Click here" to "learn more about usability"

      Both links would lead to the same document.
    • cjellibebi, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4"Click here" is an abomination that should never have existed!

      "Click here" assumes the user is navigating the web with an interface that relies on a pointer-device. And besides, it does not make sense when the web-page is printed out.

      See my post below for more details (as well as some links on HTML style-guides).
      • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Lets see, probably 99.9% or more of the devices browsing the web are computers with pointers. I think its pretty safe to assume that the user has a pointing device. The average person doesn't even know you can use the computer without a mouse. As for printing the page, it tells the reader that there is more information that is missing from the printed page. It might not be the best for plain reading, but it is a website, and the vast majority of people read the page while online.
  • Electrin, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Many links are placed for additional information within an article people are already reading. Sometimes you don't want too strong a call to action for people to leave your site.
    • el_taco, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1you mean many links are placed that are advertisements.
  • martyFREEDOM, on 10/10/2007, -4/+4Click here.
  • CayoHuesoDude, on 10/10/2007, -5/+0Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?
    Only if you "click here", of course:
    http://cayobo.tripod.com
    Everything else in the site is optional.
  • kbeast, on 10/30/2007, -0/+9Click here if you want your web page to look like HTML 1.0
  • dyranios2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Simply I find people don't often know something is a hyperlink unless it's at the top of a site in a menu or you tell them to "click here" for most things. I'm talking about Joe Sixpack 80% of people who don't understand how the internet works etc.
    • simd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1A lot of the problem stems from template designs which use CSS to remove underlines and other identifying features from links, in order to make them look prettier.
      • fjf314, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I think it also depends on who the site is trying to target. I've seen plenty of tech blogs where the hyperlink text was just a shade of gray that was barely distinguishable from the black text of the article... but I would assume that the majority of the blog's audience would still pick up on it. On the other hand, if you are trying to design sites for people like Joe Sixpack, then you basically need your hyperlinks to come as close as possible to slapping someone in the face and letting them know they should click on it. Hell, for some people hyperlinks should specify that you only need to single-click them...
  • Mononuclear, on 10/10/2007, -3/+0yes
  • ecidnac, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Most of the time I try to avoid using links with text like "click here", because they don't make sense out of context. In the case of a post that is continued on another page (another thing I try to avoid, because it's just plain annoying), the "click here to continue" is generated by my blogging software, and not part of the article itself. In such cases, I think it's more acceptable.
    • simd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I think it's important to use "Click here" along with a specific actions... so "Click here to read full newsletter" makes sense, and in marketing terms is a clear call to action.
  • dudad, on 10/30/2007, -1/+4' * “Click to continue”: 8.53%
    * “Continue to article”: 3.3%
    * “Read more”: (-)1.8%'

    It's easier to locate "Click to continue" immersed in oodles of text, pictures, and ads.
  • john2kx, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3it is a waste of anchor text.. what a dumb article.
    • simd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Is anchor text in short supply these days?
    • john2kx, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Cute, but "click here" is just too reminiscent of advertisements and spam.. not to mention unnecessary.
  • ozroy, on 10/10/2007, -3/+2So what should we do with users who are using a touch screen? The action "click" is specific to mice. Should we detect this and change the text to say "Touch here"?

    This isn't the 90s any more. Everyone knows how to use the internet, and if a website is designed well then links should stand out and look like links.

    I don't see any other computer application interfaces that are littered with "Click here" buttons. Why should websites be treated any differently?
    • simd, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1How stupid do you think people are? Anyone who uses the internet would be able to interpret the word "click" to reflect their own device. I know on my mobile to tap where it says click.

      Websites are completely different to application GUIs, and I hope you know the difference. Of course the lines are blurring with the availability of web applications which act like desktop applications - that's why designers have to use some common sense. A marketing tool - will calls to action and with a need to make users perform specific actions to succeed - is very different to Google Docs.
    • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0The vast majority of users have a mouse. Those with touchscreens probably also have a mouse and know what click here means.
  • chaoshauk, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6If you care about accessibility of your site, you'll never use the words "Click Here" as anchor text. Instead of using something like:
    To learn more about waffles, "click here".

    you should be using:
    "Learn more about waffles."

    Anybody that's done any amount of real web development should know that...
    • Jonjonr6, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0No. Period. Why? Because to someone like my parents, and all the idiots I help everyday (I work on a helpdesk), most of them don't know where to click if they're not told or shown what to click on. They only think it's blue text.
  • dalesmatrix, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5As far as making a site accessible (in the visiually impaired sense) links should be short descriptive text. "Click here" as the entire link isn't appropriate, if you can imagine a page full of "click here's" being read out by a screen reader it's not very useful to the user, as they'd have no idea where they are heading. (a screen reader can be in a mode where they read out all the links, so they wouldn't hear the surrounding text that gives the click here meaning)
  • BladeMelbourne, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11The W3C advises otherwise: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere
    • freakystyley, on 10/10/2007, -3/+3I think you can have the best of both worlds by simply linking both the "click here" as well as the descriptive text. For instance (quotes denote the links):

      "Click here" to "learn more about usability"

      Both links would lead to the same document.
      • simd, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Splitting it into two doesn't make sense - why not "Click here to learn more about usability".
    • cjellibebi, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4I agree. "Click here" is an abomination that should never have existed!

      "Click here" assumes the user is navigating the web with an interface that relies on a pointer-device. And besides, it does not make sense when the web-page is printed out.

      See my post below for more details.
  • oneSaint, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3It's actually called a "Call to action" in the Design Feild. CTA for short.

    Used in a sentence: "Your CTA is hard to see."
  • antdude, on 10/10/2007, -6/+1Click my thumb up!
  • SuperMikel, on 10/10/2007, -1/+1recently i have been seeing ad's that say "DONT CLICK UNLESS YOUR 18" it got me to click thats all im saying.
  • oojamaflip2006, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Having 'click here' in anchor text is a really dumb idea. Google looks at your site's internal linking and compares the anchor text of a link to the destination page, if your anchor text contains your keywords you are more likely to find your website listed higher up in the search listing for those keywords.
  • jizzlies, on 10/10/2007, -3/+0I think we can settle this once and for all. Here's a test:
    Click here to see funny pictures of monkeys: http://www.bofads.com/stories/monkey.htm

    Click to continue to pictures of a monkey house: http://www.bofads.com/stories/monkeyhouse.htm

    Continue to silly website: http://www.bofads.com

    Which one was better?
  • cjellibebi, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5"Click here" is an abomination that should never have existed!

    "Click here" assumes the user is navigating the web with an interface that relies on a pointer-device (such as a mouse). If the user is using a text-based browser such as 'Lynx', or is using a browser that renders the web-page as speech (speaks the web-page instead of displays it), 'Click here' would not make any sense. Also, when printed out to paper, 'Click here' would not make sense either.

    Instead, the developer should write the text in such a way that the text scans even if it is printed out. Alternatives like "More information on XYZ is available", or replacing "Click _here_ to view more information." by making the clickable words more descriptive, such as, "Read the _policies and procedures_ for more information."

    For more information about the "Click here" syndrome: see:
    http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere
    http://www.ology.org/tilt/cgh/
    http://www.hawaii.edu/itsdocs/net/goodhtml/

    And finally, just for a laugh: See:
    http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~mukluk/HTMLTerroristsHandbook.html
    • pezholio, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Spot on, with my CMS content editor hat on, the first think I tell my users not to do is use 'click here', it breaks accessibility for a start (it's no help to a blind user hearing a big list of links that just say 'click here' with no information about the content) and it just looks ugly.

      Users should be savvy enough to know that a bit of text that is underlined is a link. If they aren't they really aren't going to get far on the web, and really shouldn't be let anywhere near a computer.
  • firefusion, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"Click here" isn't good for SEO. Where are the keywords?
    • Japan1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0It certainly makes a website dummy proof.
  • mrgoat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3Most of these comments seem to be by people who don't actually know. Let me give you a real world example. I used to work for Playboy (w00t etc) and I sent the (double opt-in totally legit) email newsletters. On the pics of the girls I put CLICK HERE diagonal flash one day. It DOUBLED the click through rate on those images. I couldn't believe it. I did several A/B split tests over the next few weeks and it repeated itself every time.

    But as I say, this is just an actual fact, from a real world example. Carry on with your conjecture now.
  • lunchbox170, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1This is actually a hard decision to use click here or not. On one hand it is bad SEO and it looks bad, and makes smart users feel dumb. On the other hand not everyone on the web is smart so by telling them exactly what to do it gets more people to click. I dont know I think I will still continue not to use Click here for my sites. Good read though.
  • yowhat2002, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1No, im a rebel like that..
  • NiX0n, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Adobe Acrobat Reader still winning,
    http://www.google.com/search?q=click+here
  • Japan1, on 10/10/2007, -1/+0NO
  • coldcarbon, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I don't like clicking on links, Because there are some people: what will create a link www.google.com is what shows but really it's going to www.GiveMeAƒuckingVirus.com

    I always double check the location of a link before clicking on it. Just paranoid i guess :(
    • NiX0n, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I agree, tinfoil hats really are the best way to keep the Alien-Monkey Hybrids from reading our brainwaves.
  • el_taco, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1ok.. what happened to the title attribute that can be used? For instance. JAWS a popular screen reader ignores the anchor text completely if it has a title attribute.
  • SeanEtCetera, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1What article are we talking about? Do I have to click on "Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?"?

    Teh Interwebs is so hard to use!
  • d1on1x, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Not sure if it'll fit the tiny box, on the otherhand more clicks means bigger numbers (5 digits?) ..

    "Click here to digg it !"

    ps (they do use "click to edit", so diggsoft alreadt read the article ;))
  • alceria, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I hate using "click here" but I have to use it just about every day because I have to deliver information to an industry that is notoriously challenged when it comes to technology - real estate agents. It's one of the few professions where if you were computer phobic, you could get away with not using them for years. But now with all the MLSs going digital, we now have this older generation of people that are just now buying a computer and they don't know how to do anything. I have to dumb everything down for them.
  • asnow, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0This seems to be one of those sad but true facts. Although annoying, this method really does work. Perhaps if most of the internet users thought for themselves and were competant we wouldn't have marketing ploys such as this. I guess this is the price we pay for being stupid.
  • hopse30mac, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I have been arguing this case for the past year. It is nice to see some numbers outside my company's own internal numbers, that prove "click here" does work better. This seems to be one of those sad but true facts that marketing is full of.
  • allonline, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Web users are lazy, move mouse point click, move mouse point click , telling someone to click will often just get them to do that, its not because visitors are stupid its because they are often in a semi hypnotic state while browsing. Shops wouldnt use BUY NOW if it didnt work, your in a shop you can buy now, why do you need to be told so. Same principle online.

    Read Best Practice for Small Business -Persuasive Copywriting SEO - click to continue http://www.copywritingtip.com/
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