Perhaps unintentionally, Brian Clark is telling many web developers who know a thing or two about usability and accessibility (Roger Johansson, Ian Lloyd, and Andy Budd come to mind) that they're incorrect and quite possibly brainwashed:
Another reader once chastised me for wasting anchor text with the words “click here,” even though my primary goal for the link was to get people to click (shocking, I know). This is when I first realized that Google is truly making people retarded. Somehow, this person no longer saw links as navigation for actual people to use; they only exist to pass on “juice” according to an algorithm that no one fully understands.
He goes on to quote data from a Marketing Sherpa article where they found that "the right two or three click link words can lift clickthrough rates by more than 8%". So he concludes that "if you really want someone to click, but you should also tell people to take the exact action you want them to perform in order to get the best response."
Now, I don't entirely disagree with his line of thinking. I mean, what can be clearer than "click here"? But I don't entirely agree either. In fact, I think Brian's article can be a bit misleading. While I fully believe that a site should persuade people to take action (usually by clicking through to some place), it isn't the only consideration when a site is developed or maintained.
He criticizes a comment made by a reader who, to be fair, didn't back up his reasoning with fact, but is absolutely correct in his three points:
1) They’re bad for accessibility
Let's take a step back here and remind ourselves that not everyone reads web pages in a traditional web browser. The most cited example is the use of screen readers or similar assistive technology for the visually impaired. This technology typically "reads" the page to the user. With no clear description of where one is going, why would anyone click? It certainly provides an action, but not a reason.
Admittedly, this may be the weaker of any argument against "click here", but imagine hearing a passage of copy read out loud to you with "click here" in a couple of sentences.
2) They’re [sic] don’t accomodate for how users scan pages looking for actions within links (eyetracking studies bear this out)
I can't prove that eyetracking studies back up the scanning argument, but I do know that on the Web, users scan first, read second, especially when in search mode. Jakob Nielsen reported on this back in 1997 and various subsequent eyetracking studies since, including one in April of 2006. As users scan, they're looking for specific words and sentences, starting with highlighted keywords. Links are one form of this. Using nothing more than "click here" for a link means absolutely nothing when scanning.
3) They’re insulting to the user’s intelligence.
Obviously this is pure opinion. However, it's one I agree with. Even our older clients know enough about the Web to realize when you can click on a link (assuming links are appropriately highlighted). Telling them "click here" isn't exactly adding to their confidence online. Can it help? Sure, but why not expand on it and create a more meaningful link?
Brian started out his article by essentially stating that search engine optimization and the desire to rank well has overtaken common sense when it comes to writing on the Web. I can agree to a certain extent as I've seen people want to be #1 on Google overnight so bad they pretty much do anything they can. That's never a good thing. But neither is wanting to make your site so easy for every possible customer. Allowing your links to be more meaningful to search engines - as well as users - is not a horrible thing as Brian seems to conclude. Having a website is no longer a simple thing. With all the other sites competing for the same eyeballs, it's not a far-fetched idea to do what you can or have to (within reason) to get your site ranking well.
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