Getting results from links
Written by Gary HidesLinks are a great way of getting results for your site, but there’s a fine line between a pretty pointless link and a link that will benefit your web site in more ways than one.
Whilst it’s good to have lots of votes for your pages, many of these votes may do practically nothing unless these votes are carried out in the correct manner.
The search engine view
Search engines scour the content on each site they have indexed, carrying out complex calculations trying to work out which site or page is the most relevant for particular words (search terms). As you can imagine, this is a pretty difficult task. If the web were a reality TV show, then a phone vote would determine the most popular page. Hyperlinks are votes for the web. Each link to a page counts as a vote for that page and therefore makes the page more important in the eyes of a search engine.
Link text
Whilst it’s good to have lots of votes for your pages, many of these votes may do practically nothing unless these votes are carried out in the correct manner. When linking to a page always give the link text some meaning, so that if all you can read is the link, it will still make sense and give you an idea of what lies at the end of the link.
If you’re linking to large pine wardrobes, then there are many ways in which you could do this.
The wrong way:
If you’re looking for large pine wardrobes please click here.
The right way:
We sell a large range of furniture from large pine wardrobes to….
As you can see from above in the wrong method the sentence may make sense, but the most important word from a Search Engine point of view is the linked text here, obviously this doesn’t tell the search engine anything and is practically ignored. But on the second example, the link text tells the search engine much, much more. Several links to your pages in this style gives them an infinitely better chance of coming high up in the search results for phrase of large pine wardrobes.
Aid the scannability of your pages
It has been found that most web users scan web pages rather than read them in full. Therefore you should be helping your users who scan the page to find the most relevant information quickly and easily. As links stand out due to the difference in style and colour from normal page text they are perfect for scanning across. Again, looking at the examples above it is easy to see which is most useful link.
Links are tabbable
Many people navigate a web site by using the TAB key. The links on your page are the main content that is used for tabbing through. So as many users who employ assistive technology such as screen readers simply jump from link to link as they look for relevant content, a link with the text here, or click here doesn’t tell the user anything and is a real hinderance, this is another reason as to why the link text should make sense on its own.
In summary, always use descriptive text for your links, no matter where you are linking to or from. Think about the relevance if only the link text is read out and the most likely search terms people may use to find the content you are linking to.
Links
Our clients say...
The webpage actually paid for itself within 6 months of going live and is a major marketing tool and shop window for my business.
Robert Ferguson, Director
RF Holistics