Why are hyperlinks important to users

• They improve the user experience.
• On web pages, people scan rather than read. Additionally, colored links attract more attention than other text on pages – and its well known that users use hyperlinks to navigate around the website.

It is not in itself interesting that you can "Click here", "lean more" or "explore", what's interesting for the users is:

• where and what they get to when they have clicked (is it worth the effort ?)

By using generic hyperlink text as above users will need to read the surrounding text to determine what it’s about - it is not user friendly.

It is not necessary to write "click here" on hyperlinks or on buttons - the styling itself lets users know they can click.

For search engines (SEO)

Relevant hyperlink text that describes where you are being referred to, to help search engines like Google understand the structure of our website and increase our SEO value. Which means it helps our website rank higher in search results.

Internal link building

An internal link is any link from one page on our website to another page on our website. And since we know that the right hyperlinks help to increase our SEO value, it is important that we remember the internal links when we write texts (It is also beneficial for the users).

See example further down this page.

What do highway signs and hyperlinks have in common?

As a driver, I have no doubts that there are different lanes and exits on a highway - i can see it.  But if I can't see where the signs are leading me - the signs don't matter.

On a website, it can be compared to "Click here, "here" and "Read more" links. Users can see that they are links and you can click on them (they are blue and underlined) - as car drivers, users need to know where they are going before it makes sense and actually makes it easy for users to navigate around the website.

By adding the destination to the road signs, the signs now provide value to the drivers and they know which way to go. It is the same with hyperlinks. By adding the destination of the link it becomes faster/easier to navigate around the website

Examples of bad and good hyperlinks

The above is a "section" of one of our blog articles.

By skimming the text as online users do, you quickly spot the "Find out" hyperlink.
But the link raises more questions for users than it answers. Find out what? Where do I go if I click?
(It links to the page Glass roof systems)
As a user, I have no idea what is meant unless I read the entire text section - and there are many users who do not bother to spend time on that.

In terms of SEO, the link has no meaning whatsoever, as the link does not tell the search engines anything about the content on our website.

By "moving" the link to "glass roof systems" (which is also the name of the page linked to), users can quickly and without reading the entire text decode that if they click on the link, they can read more about glass roof systems.
In terms of SEO, the link now also provides value, as our product name is Keywords and the link now helps to tell the search engines what the page is about and to understand the structure of our website.

So the page is now optimized for both users and SEO.

The above is a "section" of one of our blog articles.

Here the headings in the article have been made into hyperlinks.
By making the heading a hyperlink, the headings lose their appearance as headings and come to look only like hyperlinks. This makes it more difficult for users to see the individual sections on the page and the page's content becomes more difficult to read.

The links from the headings have been removed and the headings now look like headings again, so it is now easier for users to get an overview of the content in the individual sections.The links have been moved down in the bodytext of the individual sections.

Note that although Glazing Panels and Modular Rooflights are mentioned several times in the 2 sections, there is only one link to the product page in each section.

This is due to 2 things

1. For the users, it will be disturbing when reading if there are several links pointing to the same place
2. In terms of SEO, the search engines see it as a form of cheating if there are too many links on a page that link to the same place. So it has a negative effect on our SEO optimization.

Internal link building

The above is a "section" of one of our blog articles. As you can see there are no links (no internal link building) in the text that can help users if they want to read more about the products used at Almere Train Station.

Internal link building, by adding 3 links in the text above, we now make it easier for users to quickly read more about the products used. At the same time, we are helping to optimize our SEO efforts, as 2 of the new links are keywords.

General regarding links including buttons

As previously described, users often skim text rather than read, just as everything that is clickable is used to navigate.

This news article is a good example of link building, so users can quickly navigate to relevant content if they want to read more.
The button at the bottom of the page also ensures that users, when they reach the bottom of the page, are guided to relevant content on our website