You can also use the action helper when building the link like so:

<a href="{{ action("PagesController@showDashboard") }}">link</a>

It will generate a URL based on the routes table.

Thank you both very much! That's very helpful.

Please note

<a href="{{ action("PagesController@showDashboard") }}">link</a>

does not work if the controller manages a number of different views

However, you can check the actual routes (rather than url)'s using:

php artisan route:list

I prefer to use route() wherevere possible, don't know if it is a common aproach though:

Route::get('dashboard', ['as' => 'dashboard', 'uses' => 'PagesController@showDashboard']);
...
<a href="{{ route('dashboard') }}">Dashboard</a>