Blue Links Are Better Links

When it comes to Internet marketing for cosmetic surgeons, a good website is one which has lots of content. And with all that content, your site is likely to have lots of links, whether they lead to pages within your site or even elsewhere on the web. While you may not have given a lot of thought to the appearance of your links, the way they look is very important.

The most common appearance of links is blue in color and underlined. This has pretty much become the norm across the Internet. Of course, when anything becomes standard or expected, we often want to step out of the box and change things up. Maybe you want to make your links red, green, bold, striped, polka-dotted, anything but blue and underlined. When it comes to your links, however, change is best avoided.

As tempting as it may be, resist the urge to get creative and change your links. There are many tips out there for changing the appearance of your links while still keeping them recognizable as links. In fact, we've even written an article or two on the topic. Some suggest that you change the font or bold the font, add a background color and so on. Nevertheless, it's still best to leave your links in their natural state blue and underlined.

Why? There's a very good reason to leave your links alone. Links have been blue and underlined since the earliest days of the Web. Because of this, Internet users have come to expect links to appear just this way. Users can quickly recognize anything blue and underlined on a page as a link. They intuitively know that they can click on it and that it will take them to another page. They can quickly recognize the options available to them on your site.

If you change this, however, that instant recognition is lost. Users have to stop and think about what is and is not a link, what can and cannot be clicked, essentially wasting a great deal of their time. You're forcing them to figure things out and no doubt confusing them. You want your visitors to focus on what your site has to offer, so don't distract them from that goal and force them to learn a new set of skills or standards. Let them easily and intuitively navigate your site; leave your links blue and underlined.