Why you should avoid using “click here” in your email copy
As a SaaS email marker I write a lot of copy that often requires a lot of hyperlinking (ie. embedding links). Linking out to documentation, privacy policies, blog articles, you name it. For a large portion of my career, I hyperlinked frequently within copy by asking users to click here. And then I had someone reply to an email of mine with this:
In my own email copy, I’d quoted accessibility, and then used a “here” link - which this fellow email geek kindly explained that using a contextual link instead by linking text that described what I was linking to would make it far easier for anyone scanning, or using a screen reader. Sorry that was quite a run on sentence.
I hadn’t even thought of the implications that a click here link could have on accessibility. In my thinking, it was as clear as it could be.
I took this as a learning opportunity and here are my findings.
We need to Stop embedding links ON noncontextual copy.
It’s Inaccessible
Screen readers, when scanning content will announce Link (when is such) and then continue reading aloud the content. When a link is embedded with context, the screen reader will continue reading copy that you have hyperlinked. Such as this:
“We have many resources available to you that will educate you on the LINK benefits of CBD.”
When a link is embedded onto a Click Here - the screen reader will solely announce “Link. Click Here” - but as the listener its difficult to know if it really is referencing a link, image, etc.
“We have many resources available to you that will educate you on the benefits of CBD. LINK Click here to explore them.”
When links are compiled by the screen reader into a list format for the end-user to navigate through - the end-user could end up with a massive list of links that ends up looking something like:
Vs. a clean list of contextually embedded links that looks similar to:
Makes sense - right? Although this article is email specific, I’d encourage everyone to have a read of this article by WebAim that outlines the importance and basic outline of making hyperlinks accessible.
It’s difficult to scan
The more I look at copy that has click here embedded, the more I realize how using it as a tactic detaches the action from the message it’s trying to drive towards. Take these two examples:
We have many resources available to you that will educate you on the benefits of CBD.
We have many resources available to you that will educate you on the benefits of CBD. Click here to explore them.
In the second example, by the time you get to the second sentence, you may have already forgotten what the first sentence was even referencing. Baking the embed into your copy reads naturally, and is easier on the eyes.
There are much better alternatives
This is more so a point for those that feel stuck or limited and are thinking “I definitely cannot embed links contextually there’s absolutely no way”.
I’m not saying that you should ban the word “click” from all your copy. But certainly, there are much better nouns, or verbs you can use to drive action while keeping things the status quo of short and sweet. Examples like:
Download PDF
View Webinar
Complete my profile
Just I beg of you, stop using Click Here!
SEO
SEO for email? WTF?
Think about how often you search your inbox to go back into old emails, and how better the experience would be if you added context when embedding links.
Not once have I ever searched my inbox for “click here” but I have frequently searched my inbox for downloads by what I thought their file names were, webinar titles to hopefully discover a recording link, and blog articles that I wanted to revisit.
Honorable Mentions
I would like to highlight this Tweet by Emily Smith that really got me started exploring this topic further enough to write about it.
Cheers to continuing to learn together as a community!