Hyperlinks - Strengthen Your Strands of the Webby Stephanie Lummis

The hyperlink is an intrinsic part of the web – the very strands of it, in fact, and integral to its creation, according to Tim Berners-Lee. Hyperlinks are small but mighty – and a source of missed opportunity for many organizations. Used properly, hyperlinks can strengthen your website’s ability to both capture and retain visitors.

The purpose of a hyperlink is not only to take visitors to new content but – more importantly – to communicate what content they will find when they get there. (For this article I’m discussing in-page hyperlinks – not referrers. I’ve written about improving referring links in a previous article.)

Hyperlink formatting is key

Consider the following:

(a) Bob found an investment secret that changed his life. Learn more.
(b) Bob found an investment secret that doubled his annual income.

Which one do you think will get the most clicks? The answer is (b). Let’s see why:

1.  The text should make sense without the hyperlink. This is why “learn more” and its evil twin, “click here,” under-perform. Because people scan instead of read, hyperlinks attract attention with their unique colour and are seen before main body text. People base a lot of their decision to click on the link itself and don’t invest in reading the associated content.

2. Link longer, keyword-rich descriptions for the above reason. The most often clicked links are 5 words long, so don’t be afraid to link longer phrases. Just be sure you are linking the words that accurately set the expectation for the visitor. If you provide too much information users will be unsure where the link will take them. Consider the following:

Link location		Expected target content
The Acme Foundation raised $34,000 dollars for their new care facility.		Info about the foundation
The Acme Foundation raised $34,000 dollars for their new care facility.		Info on fundraising activities
The Acme Foundation raised $34,000 dollars for their new care facility.		Info on new facility
The Acme Foundation raised $34,000 dollars for their new care facility.		The visitor might be unsure about the target content and hesitate

3. Avoid mechanical phrases such as “go to the XX website.” This is not 1997; you don’t need to explain what to do.

4. The text colour used for hyperlinks should only be used for links – no other text. Traditionally, unvisited links are blue and visited links turn purple. It isn’t necessary to stick with these. The more important element is to ensure your headers and other accent text don’t use the same colour.

In-context links

Place contextually relevant hyperlinks right in the content. Visitors can choose to follow or not for more information. Does this interrupt? Yes, but this non-linear, tangential nature is what makes the web the web. If your content is valuable, they’ll come back. Or, read the rest of the content, then go back and click.

People have actually come to expect links in the middle of the copy they are reading. Imagine if I hadn’t linked Tim Berners-Lee and improving referring links in the top paragraph? Their absence would be noticeable.

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It is also a good idea to have links at the bottom of the content, to guide and persuade users to where you want them to go next. Calls to action or supplementary information are ideal content for them.

When the visitor has to come to the end of the page and there are no hyperlinks (choices), they are forced to go back to the navigation menus and re-evaluate their options. This creates a short disconnect that interrupts the visit. By providing contextually relevant links and calls to action in the visitor’s way, you can persuade them to go right where you want them – down a path toward conversion.

Spiderweb silk has strength equal to that of high-grade steel. Strengthen your corner of the web and give hyperlinks the respect and attention they deserve. You will keep visitors on your site longer, expose them to more of your content – and ultimately, improve conversions. 

Interested in learning more about improving hyperlinks and other content areas? Ask us about web writing workshops.