Links

  • Avoid lists of links, instead try to incorporate them into paragraph text. This gives them more meaning and puts them into the context of how they may be useful. People are unlikely to scroll through lists of links looking for what they want and search engines will mark you down if you have links pages.
  • To create a link in a body of text, highlight the text that you want to be a link and click the chain symbol at the top of the text panel.wp-link
  • If you are linking to a page within the site type the-unique-url, you can find this at the top of each individual page. In the front end it will be in the address bar and at the back end it is called the permalink – the bit you want is highlighted in yellow (note – the gridhosted bit will be gone when the site goes live) :Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 10.25.58
  • This can be edited by clicking the Edit button next to it. Take care when editing URLs as the page may be linked to from somewhere else in the site and will not know that it has changed. Every URL must be unique, WordPress does this automatically when it creates a new page – if it has the same name it will add a ‘2’ on the end.
  • You can also find the unique url in your list of All pages – hover over a page and you will see ‘Quick Edit’:

    Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 10.35.32

  • Select ‘Quick Edit’ and the panel will expand. The unique url is called the ‘Slug’:

    Screen Shot 2015-11-26 at 10.36.43

  • If you are linking to an outside web source you must put the whole URL in including the http://
  • To have a file to show as a link within text e.g. A PDF:
  • Go to Media on the main menu on the left hand side and upload the file from your computer
  • Once uploaded it will have it’s own URL, copy this.
  • Go to the page where you want the file to be
  • Highlight the text (e.g. view the pdf) and click the chain symbol
  • Paste in the URL
  • Avoid underlining titles on the web, underlining tends to be reserved for links, so resist the temptation to underline titles for example, as this can be misleading for the user.
  • Use meaningful links – Rather than using ‘Click here’ or ‘Read more’ try to have meaningful link text. This is beneficial in terms of search engine results as they tend to look for links when searching.
  • Pasting the original url into the site can look ugly, instead highlight some descriptive text and insert the link by clicking the chain symbol. This is also best for SEO as Google reads all the links in the site.
  • Do not tick the box for the link to open in a new window. This is very bad for accessibility as it can disorientate the user.
  • Avoid using directions when highlighting a link e.g. ‘Click the link on the right hand side of the page’ It may be on the right hand side when you are editing the site but won’t necessarily be every time as there are different layouts for different screen sizes and devices.