The word “read” kills clicks

Marketing Sherpa made an interesting study of clickthrough rates of words that people use to encourage readers to continue with an article after a break.

The conventional wisdom of the SEO crowd is that “click here” is wasted anchor text since it doesn’t pump up the keywords you want your site to rank for.

But do you want linkjuice or do you want clicks? Marketing Sherpa found is the following clickthrough rates for the terms they tested:

• “Click to continue”: 8.53%
• “Continue to article”: 3.3%
• “Read more”: (-)1.8%

From the article: “If you publish a content-based newsletter, avoid using “Read [insert any adverb].” We strongly believe that online readers skim far, far more often than they read. So, it makes no sense to sell your idea as an activity they’ve come to instinctively avoid.”