Its very poor practice to use the text like “Click here” as links. Some browsers, particularly some for disabled users, provide a summary of links throughout a page. If this practice were to be adopted throughout a page, a list of links like this would be presented to the user:

• Click here
• Open this
• Here
• Download

Out of context none of these links make sense nor provide any indication of where they go!

When creating a link, first check that the words sufficiently describe where the user should expect to be taken. So avoid using phrases like “click here”, and in a lot of cases, linking just one word probably wouldn’t be descriptive enough either.

Other common indescriptive links used are “Document” “Publiction”, “Form”. When taken out of context you have no idea where this link goes, and you’re left with so many questions e.g. Which form? Which publication?

Usability studies have shown people quickly scan pages rather than reading them in full. Because links stand out, by linking the appropriate text rather then indescriptive phrases people are likely to find the information they are looking for a lot quicker. Otherwise they’ll give up a visit a website which is easier to navigate…