Death to the "Read More" link
Posted on December 2, 2007 | 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
This is a post about something that I'd thought had died out but I've started seeing it a lot again lately. Whenever a designer does a new website design, they rarely have copy to work with. So when creating promotional areas on the homepage, in sidebars, etc., you'll inevitably see something like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Quisque molestie tristique nulla. Nam porta cursus sapien. Duis ullamcorper porta tortor. Suspendisse vel enim vitae magna lobortis tempor.
Read More
The problem I have with this is the "read more" link at the bottom. Content creators use this template and typically add copy but leave the link unchanged. While it may look aesthetically pleasing to have 4 promo areas with symmetrical "read more" links at the bottom, it's terrible for SEO and for general web accessibility.
It's widely known at this point that search engines use the actual text of a hyperlink as one of the criteria for search engine rankings. Chances are people aren't googling "read more" and hoping to find your website so stop polluting your pages with those links. Instead, make the title of the promo your hyperlink, or at least use descriptive keywords in your link at the bottom.
If you're a designer, stop creating comps with these "read more" links because it encourages a bad practice.
If you're a content writer, start factoring this into your content creation. Whenever you need a link, be sure to include descriptive keywords.
If you're a developer, send this blog post to your designer and content creator team members and let's try to kill the "read more" link once and for all.
Damn! Why didn't you tell me? :)