The basic hyperlink is the most important piece of code on the internet. Are you using it wrong?
I started designing websites in 1996. One of my earliest lessons had to do with hyperlinks, which I learned from watching people read and interact with web pages I had just built. My question was “Did you see where you were supposed to click?” Often, people did not.
Here’s what I learned: you need to think about how many words need to be clickable to make the hyperlink noticeable (aka usable). If I added a hyperlink to a single word it was often overlooked. It might have made logical sense, but no one was clicking it. Two decades later, I still see this mistake from web developers and content writers.
Here are examples:
Too subtle
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The expert user will definitely see the link. Other users will be prone to overlook it. If your stylesheet defines hyperlinks with only a subtle color shift from regular text, it will be nearly invisible.
Just right
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The sweet spot for your hyperlinks is 3-7 words. In this case, even internet users who have weak webby mojo will see it.
Too much
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You might ask why not make the whole sentence a hyperlink? This makes your text looks like an instructional document or a legal agreement, where the most important sentence has been stylized for emphasis. Whether the hyperlink is underlined, made bold, or colored — or any combination of the three — it might be mistaken for an important thing you should read.
Note: the underline <u> code was deprecated, then reinstated with restrictive conditions, by the W3C HTML overlords who think you shouldn’t underline any content that isn’t a hyperlink. They also hate squirt guns and ice cream.
This is the worst – are you a monster?
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This is too clever for its own good. If you really have 4 different things you need people to read, you’d be better off making a list than putting all these links in a single sentence.
Choosing 3-7 words for your hyperlinks is a simple practice that many people will ignore. And their websites will probably function just fine. But if you follow this practice, you might find that more people click on your links.
