How to Code Links
One of the first things I encountered as a new blogger that seemed to perplex me was writing the code to build my own links. Once you know how, it seems easy.
I remember too well a major directory I wanted to be in that required you take a button and link it back to their blog. They didn’t provide the code only .jpgs of buttons. I wrote support for help and a guy with geeky attitude basically said, Figure it out for yourself.
Even if you already know how to code links, having this post that lays it out plainly is a handy thing because you’re bound to have a new blogger friend ask you for help on this in the next few weeks.
To keep a blog healthy and sleek, build links the old-fashioned way. It’s really not hard once someone shows you how.Turn the page for explicit examples.
How to Code Links
<a href=“http://URL”>Link Anchor Text</a >
Link Anchor Text
The Code Explained: The Link Itself
“http://URL”
If you want to link to the blog itself, put the blog’s home page URL.
“https://www.successful-blog.com”
Post Links
If you want to link to a specific post, code a Permalink, the permanent address of the post.
“https://www.successful-blog.com/1/blog-basics-1-comments-and-comment-policies/”
Some blog software offers a marked Permalink below the post to take you to a post’s permanent address. In some, you get to the permanent address by clicking the title of the post. In Blogger, click the time the post was entered.
You know you have the Permalink when the address in your browser’s address bar includes words from the title or other words tht show specific archive information.
In your own post, highlight the text you’ll use as the anchor for your link — do use more descriptive than the words click here. Then click the link button above your post screen and put the permalink in the pop-up box that appears. Hit ok and the hyperlink is made for you. (It works much the same in a WORD document by the way.)
Why Links?
Links are what makes the Internet a weblike structure. Links connect us and our content and show how our blogs are relevant and important to each other. The more we are linked, the more relevant search engines and people consider our content to be. What a fine way links have of building our business and our visibility.
Well-placed links are great blog promotion. They earn page rank and high Search Engine Page Ranks (SERPS — you come up first in a search and people come to visit.) Well-placed links show readers that you are connected to what’s going on in the bigger universe of your niche and offer readers additional content elsewhere on a subject they’re already interested in. Readers don’t forget who helps them to find information. They have little time, and there are so many blogs. The folks that you link to don’t forget the visitors you sent their way either.
Making links — tangible and intangible ones — is important in tangible and intangible ways. They are the web that makes the Internet strong. They bring us together and make us more than a single voice shouting alone.
How many links have you built this week?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want Liz to help with your link building strategies, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.
Related articles:
Blog Review Checklist
How to Code Accessible Linksââ¬âPart 1
How to Code Accessible Linksââ¬âPart 2
How to Code Accessible Linksââ¬âPart 3
Great post for beginners, Liz. I especially like your explanation about Why Link?
I’m just wondering what kind of gyrations you had to go through to get the code to come through as text and not do what the code should do… 😉
I would write post on that, but the code to do it would disappear. So I’ll just show you here. I’ve put in spaces in so that it doesn’t diappear
The code for the less than sign is
& lt ; keep those 4 characters togehter to get < The code for the greater than sign is & gt ; keep those 4 characters togehter to get <
I would also suggest that along with the href attribute, the title attribute should also be used to hold additional information. It shows up when someone hovers over the link. Example code is:
<a href=”http://URL” title=”This is a sample link”>Link Anchor Text</a>
which will look like
Link Anchor Text
Hi Abhijit,
I agree that is in How to code Accessible Links, but yes it should be in this one too.
Hi Liz,
Sorry, I got too hasty in posting the comment before reading the related articles. Nice and exhaustive series.
Not a problem, Abhijit. That really should have been part of the first article you are right to point that out.
Liz
Great post Liz. I think a lot of people out there get left behind with some of the blogging advice because they haven’t yet had the chance to learn the very basics.
Hi Brian,
Thanks for stopping by! I thought there might be a few folks who hadn’t had a chance to learn this so it might be time to bring it out again.
I appreciate your cooment. 🙂
i made one that linked to you! hooray!!
Ah Pek
Congratulations! In some cultures that would mean that we are marrried. 😛 *giggle*
I was originially merely going to link to your post, because I think hand-coding HTML is still a valuable skill to have, especially since Blogger makes you install your own links, and for other reasons.
I was quite surprised when I found that your post actually inspired me to create my own post about the same thing. I think I go into a bit more technical detail and my post (which can be found here: http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2006/06/bloglife-howto-zen-and-art-of-hand.html is Blogger-centric, as that’s where my blogs are hosted anyway.
Talk about bringing the conversation forward. Here’s my two cents. And I’ll link my ‘blog to yours, because you have a very enlightened approach to it all that’s rather friendly.
Hello Samuel John Klein,
Thank you for your comment and for your links and for leaving a link to your post. I think hand linking is important. Links are the heart of what makes the web a web.
I hope you have a chance to read the additional posts that Cas wrote about coding accessible links. She’s much smarter than I am about such things. So I asked her to write those. 🙂
I really aprreciate your final comments. We don’t go in for geeky attitude around here. You’re not a stranger — you’ve been here once. You’re a friend now. I hope to see you again.
Liz