Write links that still make sense on their own

The list nobody designed for

Screen reader software can gather every link on a page into one list, stripped of its sentence, and read it out as a menu. It is a fast way to find the way onward.

On a typical business site that list comes back as click here, click here, read more, learn more, here. It is a menu of identical doors with no signs. The reader has to go back into the page and rebuild the context by hand.

Try it on your own site. Turn on the screen reader your computer already has, ask it for the links list, and read what comes back. It takes two minutes and it is usually the moment the point lands.

Say where it goes

The fix is to put the destination into the words themselves. Not read more about it, but read our roof inspection checklist.

You rarely need to restructure a sentence to do it. Move the link so it wraps the words that already name the thing. The sentence gets shorter and the link starts carrying its own weight.

The wording is also the clearest signal a search engine gets about what the destination covers, which is why this is the one accessibility fix with a direct search benefit. It is covered from that side in internal linking.

Same words, same place

If two links on a page have identical wording, they should go to the same page. A reader who sees pricing twice reasonably expects one destination.

The reverse also matters. Do not invent three different names for one page across your site. Pick a phrase and use it everywhere, so the route becomes familiar.

Consistency is worth more than variety here. A reader who has met the phrase twice on other pages knows it at once on the third, and the destination accumulates a clear description rather than five vague ones.

When a link opens something unusual

If a link starts a download, or opens a document rather than a page, say so in the words. A file name and its kind take three extra words and stop an unwelcome surprise.

The same goes for anything that opens a new window. Many readers, particularly on assistive technology, lose their place when a window changes underneath them without warning.

• A download — name the file type and roughly how large it is
• A document rather than a page
• A new window or tab
• An external site, where the reader is leaving yours
• A phone dialler or an email client
• Anything that starts a payment or a booking

Where the wording comes from

The easiest source of good link wording is the title of the page you are linking to. If that title is clear, borrowing it keeps your whole site consistent without any extra thought.

It also means a reader who follows the link lands on a page whose heading matches the words they just clicked. That small agreement is reassuring, and its absence is quietly unsettling.

Where your page titles are vague, fix those first. Vague titles produce vague links everywhere they are referenced.

Buttons and links are different

A link takes you somewhere. A button does something. Send, submit and open the menu are buttons. Pricing and contact are links.

Building one as the other confuses the keyboard behavior and the announcement. It also confuses sighted visitors, who have learned from every other site what each of those shapes will do.

What good link text does for search

The words inside a link are one of the clearest signals of what the destination is about, both to a person and to a search engine reading your site structure.

So the accessible version and the sensible search version are the same version. Pages here are written from a conversation about your business, and the internal links are built from the plan rather than sprinkled in afterwards. Every page passes a check that runs before anything publishes.

Buttons in the middle of a paragraph

A common pattern is a paragraph of explanation followed by a large button reading get started. On its own, that button says nothing about where it goes.

Name the destination on the button itself. See what it costs, or book a call, or read the checklist. It takes no more space and it works when the button is encountered alone.

Pages here carry link wording drawn from the plan rather than added at the end, and each one passes a check that runs before anything publishes, validated against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards.

The same applies to a card or a tile whose whole surface is clickable. If the accessible name of that card is the image filename, the link list fills with nonsense even though the page looks immaculate.