Summary
One of the most basic, yet important, elements of a web page is a link. It's what allows users to navigate from page to page and find the information they need. Browsers and assistive technology allow users to use the tab key to cycle through all of the links on the page, skipping the content in-between, sometimes reading the text within the link aloud. For this reason it's critical that links make sense with, or without, the context of the surrounding content.
Using Links
Links with Assitive Technology
Since screen readers will read the link text aloud, excluding the surrounding content, the link itself must provide enough context to let the user know what the link will do.
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This is an example of an improperly used link, as you can see if the text within the link is read aloud it provides no context as to what "click here" will do.
This guide is offered in printable format and you can download a PDF of this guide here.
This example maintains the meaning of the entire sentence, yet if the link text is read aloud it provides context as to what it will do.
It is also important to remember that since each link may need to be read aloud, for someone using assistive technology, it is helpful to place keywords at the beginning of the text so that the entirety of the text doesn't have to be read to determine the context of the link.
Accessibility Checker
When using the Siteimprove Accessibility Checker it will list issues for potential link problems, labeled as "Link Purpose (In Context)" or "Link Purpose (Link Only)". These are generally referring to links that contain "click here" type of text, however there are times that these alerts are false positives, so your judgement is necessary.