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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:
- Choose a relevant section of text within a blog post, preferably when you’re writing the post.
- Add an anchor element immediately before the section you want to link to in the future. Like this:
<a name="mylinkname"></>. You can also highlight the anchor text, like so:<a name="otherlinkname">anchor text here</>. - Use a hashmark # to refer back to this section from anywhere on the Web.
- 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.
Do you have a Tip? Would you like to write a Practical WordPress Tip? Each Tip is very short, and focuses on a single action that anyone can use right away, no programming required! If you have a Tip that fits into this series, and you’d like to publish it here on Website In A Weekend, send it on!
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this one could be fleshed out into a longer article.
Deacon´s last blog ..Your 1 Most Important Activity
@Deacon – Tip #19 would be part of that article.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..DIY WordPress: 3 Reasons You Should Learn To Code
Awesome deep linking tip for Wordpress Dave, short sweet and right to the tip. Teaching deep linking is one of my favorite things to do amongst my friends that also operate blogs.
Extreme John´s last blog ..9 Blogs I Found on Blog Engage
@EJ – You can do some really cool contextual writing with deep linking. I use it to communicate subtext as well.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..DIY WordPress: 3 Reasons You Should Learn To Code
I’m going to have to wait for Tip #19 as I’m confused
Ah, so much to learn and implement!
Michelle Mangen´s last blog ..20 #WordPress Plugins I would die without!
@Michelle – This will end up on a screencast at some point.
#19 should be easier, it’s more deep linking, but with specific examples.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Holiday Season Kicks Off – 2 Weeks in Review!
Yeah! Let me know when the screencasts and done.
Michelle Mangen´s last blog ..20 #WordPress Plugins I would die without!
The screencasts are finished. More news in Feb.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Practical WordPress Tip #19 Link to other comments
your blog entries are like peanut butter M&M’s…I can’t have just one. must have a handful at a time.
That’s my evil plan. It’s only going to get worse as I continue to revise and add internal hyperlinks. For example, I may refer to this comment in the future as an example of my evil plan in action.
CommentLuv is so cool, because I can bounce readers right back into the mainstream of entries with an intriguing blog post title.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Saturday Morning Surfing – Oversharing is *not* intimacy