A browseable list of click here alternatives for the web
The phrase "click here" has anchored the web for decades, but its familiarity has hidden real costs. Search engines, accessibility advocates and conversion copywriters in Australia and abroad have spent years pointing out the same problems with this two-word instruction. From small business sites in Brisbane to federal portals in Canberra, the same generic words keep appearing where richer text would do more work.
A link that says only "click here" forces the reader to look elsewhere for context. It frustrates people who skim, alienates screen reader users, and makes the destination a mystery until the page loads. When the link points to a page that does little to introduce itself, the problem compounds, and Australian users have learned to treat generic "continue" links with the same suspicion they would give a clipboard-wielding stranger on George Street.
Replacing the phrase is rarely complicated, but it does require treating the link as a piece of writing rather than a button. The browseable list below collects alternatives, grouped by intent, tone and the kind of action being asked of the reader. Some work for product pages, others for government forms, and a few for the long-form articles that still get shared in Melbourne office Slack channels every Friday.
Why click here earns a place on the blacklist
Accessibility is the loudest reason. Screen reader users often navigate by pulling up a list of links on a page, and if every link on a site says "click here", the list becomes useless. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which the Australian Human Rights Commission and many state agencies treat as a baseline, specifically recommend that link text make sense in isolation.
Search engines face the same problem. Crawlers weigh the words inside a link to understand what the destination page is about, and a string of "click here" anchors gives them nothing to weigh. Marketers running SEO campaigns for clients from Perth to Parramatta tend to be the first to insist that internal links describe the page they sit on.
Trust is the third issue. When a reader cannot tell where a link goes, they hesitate, and hesitation is the enemy of a click. Anyone who has archived a redirect can track how often the destination behind a generic anchor changes, and that history is rarely reassuring.
Alternatives that simply describe the next step
The simplest replacement is a phrase that names the destination. "Read the full report", "view the pricing", "see the menu" and "open the PDF" tell the reader exactly what is on the other side. They work for almost any audience, including the broad mix of readers landing on Australian retail sites from search and social.
For internal navigation, a short noun phrase often does the job. "Pricing", "Contact", "Locations" and "Opening hours" sit naturally in a footer or sidebar. They also help voice assistants, which increasingly answer queries from Australian households through smart speakers, recognise the link as a labelled destination rather than a verb.
The trick is to avoid the trap of "click here to read more". That construction combines the worst of both worlds: a generic verb and a vague promise. A clean alternative is simply "read the full report", with "read" doing the work of "click here" and "the full report" doing the work of "more".
Action verbs that pair well with buttons
Buttons deserve a slightly different treatment than inline links because the user is closer to a commitment. Australian checkout pages have settled on a familiar set: "Add to cart", "Buy now", "Place order" and "Continue to payment". Each names a verb and a destination, which is exactly what a button should do.
For service businesses the verbs shift. "Book a table" reads better than "click here" on a restaurant site in Surry Hills. "Reserve a seat" works for theatres. "Enrol now" fits TAFE and university pages, and "Get a quote" tends to outperform "click here" for tradies from Penrith to Bunbury. The verb tells the reader what they are about to do, and the noun tells them what they will get.
It is worth being specific about the deliverable too. "Download the 2026 fee schedule" beats "Download" because it previews the file. "Subscribe to the monthly newsletter" beats "Subscribe" because it sets expectations. The longer phrase reads as honest, while the shorter one can feel like a leap of faith.
Letting the surrounding sentence carry the link
Many web writers have moved away from standalone link phrases altogether. Instead, the link sits inside a sentence, with the anchor being a few words that already describe the destination. A sentence like "The team has published a full walkthrough of the new platform" can place the link on "full walkthrough" or "new platform", and the reader gets context from the words around it.
This pattern suits long articles, especially the kind published by Australian industry bodies, university research centres and government departments. A reader scanning the page can read the surrounding sentence and decide whether to follow the link, without having to leave the sentence to read a button label.
The same approach works in email, in help docs and in app store listings. It also makes life easier for the writer, because the link becomes part of the story rather than a separate instruction. A sentence that ends with "the survey results" reads more naturally than one that ends with "click here to read the survey results", and the destination becomes part of the narrative.
Words and phrases tuned for Australian readers
Spelling is the easy part. Australian English keeps the British forms: "colour", "organisation", "centre", "programme" for events and "favour". The list of alternatives in this article uses those spellings throughout, which matters when the audience is local and the brand voice is meant to feel Australian.
Vocabulary is where things get interesting. Australians respond well to direct, plain-English copy, which is why government writing guidelines from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet push for short sentences and everyday words. That approach removes the need for filler verbs like "click here" in the first place.
Pricing and legal language is another local quirk. Australian retailers typically display GST-inclusive prices, and call-to-action buttons that say "Order now" or "Pay deposit" sit more naturally next to "$49.95 inc. GST" than a generic "click here" would. The phrase "limited time" works, but "ends Sunday" is the kind of concrete date Australian shoppers tend to trust more.
Phrases worth retiring alongside click here
"Read more" and "Learn more" are the next two phrases that need a quiet retirement. They promise education without saying what the reader will learn. Better to name the topic: "Read the 2026 salary survey" beats "Read more", and "Learn how Qantas structures its loyalty program" beats "Learn more".
"Continue" is another culprit. On multi-step forms it tells the user nothing about the step ahead. "Continue to payment", "Continue to delivery details" or "Continue to review" all give a clear sense of what is coming, and they reduce the drop-off rate on long forms that Australians abandon in surprisingly high numbers at the final stage.
Even phrases that name a deliverable can be tightened. Instead of "click here for the detailed breakdown", the link can sit on "detailed breakdown" with a sentence that already explains the context. The reader never has to ask what they are about to see.
A short browseable list of rewrites
For quick reference, the table below maps the generic phrase to a tighter alternative. It is not exhaustive, but it covers the cases that come up most often in Australian web work, from small ecommerce stores to community association sites.
"Click here" → "Read the safety data sheet" or "View the ingredients list" "Click here to subscribe" → "Subscribe to the weekly briefing" "Click here for more info" → "See the full list of services" "Click here to register" → "Register for the webinar" "Click here to download" → "Download the 2026 fee schedule (PDF, 1.2MB)"
The last example shows why file format and size help. A reader who knows they are about to receive a 1.2MB PDF on a metered connection in a regional area is making an informed choice, not a guess. That is the deeper principle behind the whole list: a good link tells the truth about what sits on the other side. When the destination is an unusual site that has been written about in odd corners of the web, the origin story can be linked with its actual title rather than a vague "click here", and the same rule applies to the rest of the page.