Any benefits to using a <button> over a HREF?

Marketing
1

I was wondering, are there any SEO benefits (or pitfalls) to using a <button> over a <a href=“”> in HTML \ XHTML documents for links?

I fancy doing this on the two main ‘call to action’ buttons on a site im working on. Just so if the site is ever viewed without the style sheet loaded the buttons would stand out more than a standard blue link.

Thank you for any advice

2

Links that take you somewhere should use href.

Buttons are used in forms and form submissions, or to indicate that an action will be performed (save, cancel, show dancing hamsters on the screen, etc)

What does your link/button actually do?

3

Well one will take you to a contact form to complete, and another to a portfolio. Just large call to action style buttons really.

I just wondered about any SEO benefits to using <buttons> as i thought they would look a little better without a stylesheet applied.

4

Then no, a button wouldn’t be appropriate here

A standard href is more appropriate. Buttons are not usually expected to perform the action you’re describing.

Why are you concerned about CSS not being applied?

5

Im not really, just want to make sure i build it the best way possible, so if it ever was viewed without CSS applied the call to action ‘buttons’ would still be demanding of the viewers attention due to their size. Purely aesthetics.

Thanks for replying and clearing that up for me tho. I appreciate it :slight_smile:

6

He could of course use a background image:


.portfolio a 
    width: whatever;
    height: whatever;
    display: block;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    text-indent: -999em{
    background: url(your_portfolio_graphic.gif) no-repeat;
}




<div class="portfolio"><a href="#">#</a></div>
7

Or just a regular image

<a href="http://domain.com/link"><img src="http://domain.com/myimage.jpg"></a>

But I would think that images would be disabled before CSS would be.

8

But of course you would have alt text in the image tag, so that would display if the image couldn’t. And if images are off then quite honestly, worrying too much about the graphic display is a bit of a waste of time!

9

Yes We have benefits in using button tag over HREF tag. Because, visitors doesn’t knew the link in the site. So, using the link & passes it easily by the button. But in sometimes the button image doesn’t load. So, it will make an issue.