The Glue that Binds your Site Together

Once you start building Tier 3 pages, and want to link any other related pages you will need to know how to create a link on a webpage. Like anything to do with web building, it is fairly simple, just a few rules to follow. Once you have done it a few times, you'll have it down pat.
So here's the basics first, and then we will give you the magical bit of code that you can reuse.

There are three parts to each link:

* the tags that tell browsers that this is a link to somewhere else (in orange)
* the URL, which is the destination, and (in bold)
* the text that you see as the link on the page. (in italics)

In the example above, the URL is http://www.anyhoodles.com/website-tutorials.html, and the text you will see, appearing as the live link is Anyhoodles Web Tutorials.

Let's examine each of the three parts in turn...

The Tags

There is a format for all HTML tags, and if you don't get it exactly right, they won't work. For links, the opening and closing tags are both required. See below.
If you want to link to another site, you should use the link builder within SBI which allows you to open a new window when linking to an outside site, meaning that you don't lose your visitor.

The URL

The URL is the domain name plus the file name of the destination page that you are sending your visitor to.

The format for the URL is always http://www.domainname.com or http://www.domainname.com/file-name.html. (See the example above)

It's always best to copy the URL and then paste it in here. You can do that by right-clicking on the link (control-click on a Mac) and copying the URL to your clipboard.
The most common mistake when adding a URL is omitting everything before www. Each URL must begin with http:// - making sure you have forward slashes and NOT backslashes. Another common mistake is not entering the URL correctly. That's where the copy-paste helps. If you can't paste it in, go over it carefully, especially in the file name. URL file names, in particular, are case-sensitive. Check that the extension is correct as well: it can be one of many, including .html, .htm, .php and .asp.

The Text

You can put anything you want in here. In the example above, I created the link to www.anyhoodles.com/website-tutorials.html using the text 'Anyhoodles Web Tutorials' but I could easily have used 'to learn more about this topic try our tutorials'.

Have you ever been on a page that has "Click here" as a link? We all have, and have probably all been frustrated because "Click here" on its own is quite vague and also does nothing to impress the search engines. Try to be more specific, and if possible use your keyword for that page in one of your links. (See Make Your Links WORK! for more tips. It's available in the DownloadCenter at Site Central.)

Something that I was stuck on for a long time was how to include my keyword in a link on each web page to further impress the search engines.
Here's the trick!
Instead of putting a link at the bottom of your page that says "Return to Home Page" or similar, include your Specific Keyword. For example, if your keyword is "website tutorials", try something like "Return to the Home Page from Website Tutorials".
Alternatively, if you have another page with further website tutorials, your link could read 'Click Here For More Website Tutorials'.

The most important part of the link is the code below, we suggest you write down this code somewhere safe, and simply add your URL and text anytime you need to add a link. (It will not actually copy and paste as it is an image file.)

**TIP- Always check your links after building them to double check that you have entered the code correctly. Eventually you will get an email from SBI telling you if you have broken links, but do you really want to rub a whole lot of your visitors up the wrong way in the meantime?
Easier to get it right the first time!