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Obvious and Consistent Hyperlinks increase conversions
By Todd Follansbee September, 2010
First published in Web Marketing Today the largest, oldest internet marketing newsletter on the web - and still free.

Hyperlinks make the web, and your site, work. Don't make people struggle, or mouse or search to find them because they will get frustrated and think your site is amateurish. Many will just leave. We see this in direct user testing all the time. Review these simple guidelines and then check your site for compliance because it is very rare that sites fully comply. As always we welcome your feedback.

If your site visitors are confused about the hyperlinks on your site, it can significantly hurt their confidence in your site -- and your conversion rate!

Five sites came to me last week with conversion problems and they all shared the one simple problem I see on nearly every site I work on -- hyperlink confusion. Let me explain how to fix this -- it's fairly easy, actually.

Quick Quiz To illustrate the problem, please take the following quick quiz. Look at the following three screen captures and try to identify how many text hyperlinks are included in each image. (Don't count the graphic hyperlinks.) The answers are at the end of the quiz.

Example 1. How many hyperlinks?

. 

Example 3. How many hyperlinks?

Answers: Example 1 had 2 hyperlinks. Example 2 had 22 hyperlinks. Example 3 had 1 hyperlink.

In these examples you see a number of elements that might be hyperlinks, some that should be though aren't, and some that are easy to spot.

Ten years ago, text hyperlinks were easy to spot; they were all blue underlined text. These days, text hyperlinks can take any variety of forms. There should be no confusion about hyperlinks. Confusion is bad for conversions.

Clear Hyperlinks Inspire Confidence

In my 10 years of studying user behaviors in face-to-face testing, I've observed that visitors seem to need to learn how to recognize the text hyperlinks on a site before they will enter it. Hyperlinks are one of the few tools that many seniors and newbies are confident that they understand, so until they recognize the links, they are even less likely to enter a site.

What makes a good site hyperlink policy?

• Consistency. The key rule is to be consistent. Make sure that all your text hyperlinks look and behave the same, 100% of the time. As soon as you violate this rule even once, you undermine credibility and create confusion.
• Differentiation. Text hyperlinks must look different than conventional text. Choose characteristics for your text hyperlinks that can work throughout the site, including the cart. These include: font, text weight, colors, hover behaviors, visited/unvisited state and size (though size can vary somewhat for example in image captions).

Once you have a policy in place, make it easy for visitors to instantly identify a text hyperlink -- visually, without having to move a mouse over the link. Use these cues on the home page and each key entry page try to make at least one hyperlink very obvious:

• Put a hyperlink at the end of a sentence and use a common hyperlink term such as: "details," "learn more," "click here," "go to," "watch," "subscribe," "sign up," or "visit Web Marketing's website."
• Along with an obvious graphic call to action, such as a button, put a text hyperlink, as well. In example 3 above, if the developers had made OSHA-CAUTION a text hyperlink, visitors would have recognized the hyperlink policy right away.

Make Text Hyperlinks Do More

Next, make your text hyperlinks do more:

• Calls to action. Begin text hyperlinks with active verbs to compel clicks: buy, learn, visit, view, subscribe.
• Motivate clicks. If your text hyperlinks describe the benefits of clicking, you will get more clicks.
• Set expectations. Use enough words to indicate the value of the hyperlink to the user. For example, if you indicate that support material or more images exist, some may find it helpful to click while others may just be glad to know it is available.
• Substantiate claims. Build credibility by substantiating claims with hyperlinks. Don't just say "we are the oldest and biggest," link to proof. If you substantiate all claims, visitors are much more likely to find you credible.
• Provide details. Help visitors understand the details of your privacy policy, shipping terms, returns, etc.
• Define acronyms or terminology. Link to a glossary or a pop-up definition so you can use essential terminology, such as a disease name or an acronym, without creating confusion.
• Identify what the link connects to: video, pdf, external site, downloads or images. For example, the icon below clearly indicates a video link.
• 
• All offsite content should open in a new window. If a video is running, try to insure that clicking on a link does not halt the video.
• Been there. If your text hyperlinks indicate that a link has been clicked on, it makes it easier for visitors to return to important content. "Visited links" also serve to "welcome" visitors back. When there is a longer list of link choices, showing visited links makes it much easier for visitors to discover what they have and have not reviewed. The common method is to slightly "desaturate" the visited link, such as a weaker color for a visited link. (Note that some browsers put the control of this option in the user's hands.)

Hyperlinks are what makes the web work. Making them easy to identify is essential if you wish to provide a good user experience.

To watch a short video of a usability test please visit the download page.

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