In this article we will learn how to link a website. The method for how to link a website can vary a lot depending on how the website was built and coded and what type of administrative settings are in place. There are also different elements that affect how the link will appear to your website visitors; depending on if you want to draw attention to the link or if you are using it more as a search engine optimization (SEO) tactic. In this How to Link a Website article, we will also discuss other elements of link building that can affect how effective your links are: anchor text, link placement, etc.
How to link a website using WordPress, Blogger, or a CMS (content management software) program.
In general, when learning how to link a website, using a CMS or text editor software is probably the easiest and most intuitive way to add a link to a website. When adding an article or new content to the website through one of these mediums, the tool bar at the top will contain a button that says “link” or a button with a picture of a chain link (near the bold, italic, and other formatting buttons). To add a link to the article, simply highlight the text that you want the link “anchored” to (this is the text the user will have to click on to be directed to the link) and then click the “link” button. A box will pop up that will let you input the URL (address) of the link you want to add. Most of these pop up boxes will also let you specify a title for the link. The title is the text that will appear in a little yellow box when the user hovers over the text that the link is anchored to. Once you have entered these elements you can simply click insert and you should see that the text that is linked is now underlined in your document.
After the article is published, be sure to check each link manually to ensure that it was inserted correctly. A couple of things to watch for that could break the link: some programs already have the http:// entered, if you are copying and pasting the URL but don’t delete that, you could end up with a double http://, which will break the link. Make sure you have copied the entire URL, a partial URL will not work or may redirect to an unintended page. Copying and pasting a URL is generally the best method to use when adding a link as it will help avoid typing or spelling errors that can break the link or direct the user to an unintended website.
Some CMS solutions will also allow the user to specify other elements when adding a link, such as target, this will let the user determine if the link should open in a new window or the current window. Another option that may be available is class, this lets you apply custom style to the link like text color, background color, etc. Most of these text editing programs will also provide an unlink button, represented by a button showing a broken chain link, that will allow you to remove a link from the document.
How to link a website without using an html editor or CMS.
Without a simple button to push that will let you add a link to a website, many people feel intimidated and think they will not be able to add a link. However, if the area in which you are entering text allows for basic html, adding a link is actually very simple. Even if you don’t “know” html and don’t understand how it works, following basic instructions make it easy to add a link with the anchor text of your choosing. The only special formatting or characters you need to use are the <> brackets, located on the comma and period keys on a standard keyboard. These brackets tell the computer that the information enclosed is not to be displayed on the website as text but is instead giving an instruction. When adding a link using html, start the link with <a href= this tells the webpage that the information that comes next is going to be a hyperlink. Immediately following the = sign insert the entire URL, including the http://www surrounded by quotes followed by a closing bracket, that is this one >. Make sure you have both quotes and the beginning and ending brackets and that the only space is between the “a” and the “href”. This is what is should look like so far:
The next part will define what anchor text you want to show up for the link. If your sentence says, “Visit my site for more information” and you simply want the words “my site” to be the anchor text you will put the words “my site” immediately following the end bracket, without a space before the first word but with a space between the two words. Last, you have to tell the computer that you are done with this link so that it won’t link all the text that follows. To do this simply follow the word site with an opening and closing bracket with a “/a” inside of it, no spaces, like this: </a> You will notice that the very beginning started with an open bracket and then an “a” the slash before the “a” enclosed inside of the brackets tells the webpage that you are now ending that particular html function. This is what it should look like when completed:
Once the page is published the only part that you will see are the words “my site”, most browsers will display these words in blue text with an underline, but the actual appearance of the link can vary from one browser to another.
Anchor text, SEO, and link placement.
The reason you are adding a link can affect the anchor text you use. Are you are trying to help a search engine find all the pages on your site, are you trying to provide link value to another website, or trying to increase your search engine placement? If any of these are your goals, pay special attention to the anchor text for your link. This is a huge clue telling the search engines what will be found on the page that the link is directing the user to. If you use anchor text of “click here”, a search engine has no idea what will be on that page. If your anchor text is “blue widgets” the search engine will expect to find a page that deals with blue widgets. This also helps the search engines know that the site you are linking to is likely a source for blue widgets, thus helping increase their search engine ranking. The same goes for linking to another page on your site. If you use “click here” to go to page two, the search engine doesn’t know what it will find. If you say: visit our “blue widget” page for more information, the search engine will know what page two is about. This can also increase your search engine ranking by giving the search engines a better understanding of what your site is about.
If the link is an affiliate link or a link that you aren’t really trying to tell the search engines about, you won’t need to focus as much on the anchor text as you will where you place the link. If you are trying to direct visitors to click on a certain link, likely because it is part of an affiliate program and you will be paid for them clicking on it, make it near the top of the page, in larger font, bold, or with a different font color. Basically anything that will draw the reader’s attention to it so that they know where you want them to click.
These are just a few of the basics about how to add a link to a website. Obviously, there are other methods and techniques and what works with one system will not always work on every system. If these methods don’t work for you, talk to your programmer or web developer to see if there is a simple method that will work on your system.
