Easy question I think - use "title" for links or not?

[jacal1]

This question I think is quite easy, but it's been bugging me every time I work on a site of mine. Usually when I am adding a link to a post or a page, I just block the key words and have them link to the new page on the site or another site. In Wordpress, however, I get the option to also fill in a "title" for the link, but I usually ignore that assuming it's not needed. Is there any reason I should put that title in though? Should it match the key words I've already blocked exactly, or be something else like other keywords?

Thanks!

 

[Aegean]

Personally I always use a close variant of the keywords in the title, it certainly can't do any harm although it's not required.

 

[Bravetart]

The title element of a link is simply the text that shows when you hover over a link in your browser of choice. Similar to the title element of an image. It's not essential and has little value but if you're going to include something, make sure that it makes sense to the link in question. i.e. if a link to the second page of a post might have a title of "next page".

 

[Bravetart]

Not essential? Depends how much you value accessibility/usability for your website visitors... and we all know that Google likes usable websites (1+1 = ...).

But it doesn't actually help accessibility...in fact, in some cases it can hinder it. If you have the following for example:

<a href="/sitemap/" title="Visit our sitemap">Sitemap</a>

it's plain duplication as the anchor text is descriptive enough.

In terms of usability, I doubt many hover over a link before they click it.

 

[Bravetart]

So on an e-commerce website, where each and very single product has a "buy now" button with "buy now" text in the anchor - with each link being generated dynamically, the title attribute couldn't provide something more descriptive like "product name - buy now"? This wouldn't assist in usability or accessibility?

Also, anchors in modern day websites don't always behave as a traditional href, especially when employing the use of javascript libraries, using lightboxes, sliding panels and accordions, etc, so a title attribute and value actually does benefit usability, especially when hovering over the link to find out what is going to happen before they click it.

I did say "in some cases". Of course there are exceptions. If you're talking buttons though, which suggests an image, I'd still not use title, I'd use alt. Not all screen readers will even read the title attribute and if they do, then it's going to end up a poor experience hearing "buy now" followed by "buy x product now". The name of the product will have already been read out previously.

I was mostly answering the question in the original post, which sounds like it's a plain link from one page to another, in which case, my original point still stands.

 

[Bravetart]

I'm not disagreeing with you in the slightest and I agree with all of your points above, I just meant that in the context of the original poster's question. As he's mentioned wordpress, my assumption was that he was referring to the insert link functionality and in which case it's likely to be in context and as long as the anchor is descriptive, it's more than likely not essential to include anything in the title attribute and will have very little, if any at all, impact on SEO.

 

[alex]

I've only just started using title tags on my latest project. The feedback from some users of the previous version was that that where links were vague it was helpful. For example, in my shopping basket the 'remove product' button is an image of a bin. Albeit only a small proportion of people, some users didn't know what it represented, so in the new version the title tag is now 'remove this products from your basket', thus assisting functionality.

Similarly, pictures tell a thousand words and the title tag can help users interpret them. If you're giving an image a specific purpose, the title tag reiterates it.

I also read that in terms of SEO it can also be helpful. For example if the linked text is '

read more <a href="">about us</a>.

' Adding a title tag may improve the description of the link, allowing search engines to improve their understanding of what it is their linking. So for about us you could use 'Information about [company name] and contact address', as an example.