Practical WordPress Tip #18: Deep link to internal anchors

(Reading time: 3 – 4 minutes)

Benefit: Internal linking helps you build a tightly integrated website, more favored by search engines.

Problem: Creating highly relevant and tightly targeted internal links is time consuming, and requires a considerable amount of either planning, imagination or both.

Practical WordPress Tip: Use the anchor element <a> to select link targets internally on web pages.

This is technically easy. Here’s how:
(tip)

1. Choose a relevant section of text within a blog post, preferably when you’re writing the post.
2. Add an anchor element immediately before the section you want to link to in the future. Like this: <a name="mylinkname"></a>. You can also highlight the anchor text, like so: <a name="otherlinkname">anchor text here</a>.
3. Use a hashmark # to refer back to this section from anywhere on the Web. For example, adding “#tip” to the end of the URL for this Practical WordPress Tip (http://website-in-a-weekend.net/creating-content/practical-wordpress-tip-18-deep-link-internal-anchors/#tip) let’s you jump directly to the beginning of this list.
4. Same page linking can be achieved very easily, for example <a href="#tip">jump to tip</a>
   
   Hat tip : Hat tip to Kelly Diels for
   suggesting this on-page example. Thanks Kelly!
5. Bonus: WordPress allows to you to link directly to a specific comment. For Thesis theme, look for the small number in the upper right corner of the comment.

Why: Back in olden days, which is to say in the 1990s, tables of contents for web pages had to be constructed by hand using the anchor element to link within web pages. Nowadays, with content engines such as WordPress, very few authors link within web pages. Using this technique regularly gives you a competitive advantage.

Previous Practical WordPress Tip: Practical WordPress Tip #17: Use the tail of your Drafts queue for “notes”. Using WordPress for content management requires smart thinking. Here’s a way to keep track of your raw material, without getting in your way. You save time.

Next Practical WordPress Tip: Practical WordPress Tip #19 Link to other comments. Read how to link directly to comments to increase SERPs and support narrative threads in your blog posts. It’s easy and increases your clout as an author.

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