How Many Words in a Text Link?
1. A link should make it abundantly clear to your readers what they can expect on the page that follows.
2. A link should be scannable.
3. A link should make people want to click.
(No actual number was provided by Nick Usborne. No surprise there. If you really, really need a number I recommended 3-4 words. Argue with me if you want.)
November 10th, 2004 at 6:25 pm
For professional and more important (than personal) sites I do tend to use longer link text. 3-4 words is generally what I stick to, but sometimes I find it’s longer. In those cases I could probably try to shave the length back a bit… in any case, the more descriptive the better!
November 13th, 2004 at 5:22 am
It really depends on what kind of link you’re talking about.
I think UIE did a study a while back that said longer links are better. I want to say something around 7-11 words was the best for user confidence. Unfortunately I can’t find the reference right now. I think it was in “Getting Them To What They Want”. Another related UIE article is here.
UIE also has a new report out that claims to give the magic answer:
“Longer is Better. What is the optimal length of a link? How long should your pages be? Looking at the data we’ve collected in thousands of clickstreams, you’ll see exactly how long your links and pages should be, including insightful examples”
Anyone have the magic answer handy on the “optimal link length”?