Creating Appealing Links to Encourage Clicks

Internal link building is an essential component for your website's on-site traffic. Plus, it aids with user navigation. Both of these are critical when it comes to traffic, ranking, and the overall user experience. It's an easy way to boost your on-site traffic and provides your visitors with what they want, right?

Yes, but only if it's done correctly. Website owners often don't understand that there's more to creating links than simply hyperlinking. Tiny mistakes can produce huge consequences in terms of your on-site traffic and navigation of your site, not to mention Google ranking.

These tips will help you understand the importance of creating appealing links to website users; thus, boosting site traffic, navigation, and ranking.

Anchor Text
When creating hyperlinks, you don't just want to pick a relevant anchor text because Google says you need to. Anchor text is very important because it essentially tells your website visitors where the link will take them. No, you don't just want to use "click here" or "read more." In my option, when you do that, it just makes it look lazy and lowers the site's credibility.

When selecting an anchor text, use words that will accurately describe where the link is directing the reader. For example, if you're linking to a page about airline prices, don't use an anchor text that says something about airline fatalities.

Should you use an anchor text that links to a page that isn't described in the anchor text, you're going to lose a website visitor and lower your website's credibility because you're not giving your visitor what they are seeking.

Link Quality
We all know you're only supposed to link to quality sites, but the same is said for your own website. Don't link to a page on your site that isn't up to par. If the page is incomplete or lacks quality, do yourself a favor and don't link to it until it's finished. Again, by doing so, you're only hurting your site's credibility and function.

Link Appearance
Link appearance has really come along way. No longer is the standard an underlined selection of blue words. This is good and bad. It's pretty cool that you can now change the color and font of a link, but it's also hurting your internal linking if your website visitors don't know it's a link. I've seen some website owners make their links look exactly like the rest of the text on a webpage. How is a user supposed to know there's a link there? Some sites just bold the link or only make the link appear in hoover mode. Again, how is a visitor going to know that's a link unless their mouse is over the anchor text?

It's best to keep it simple. Everyone knows hyperlinks are generally underlined, so stick with the underlined format. It's ok to change the color of the links from blue, but make sure it's a different color than the rest of your text.

These simple things really go a long way when creating links that appeal to website users. Always keep your website's visitors in mind when developing a site, not just your needs and what you hope to achieve. It all goes hand-in-hand.

What are some tips you use when creating links that appeal to website users?


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