Blogging 101: How to Create External and Internal Hyperlinks

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Today, I’m sharing a real quick tutorial on How To Create External and Internal Hyperlinks. I have been blogging for awhile now. In the beginning, one of the things that frustrated me was finding easy to understand information to help me on my blogging journey. I’m not talking about blogging courses or books that show you how to make money. I just wanted to know how to do a few “techy” things to make my blog look and run nice and smooth. My husband is pretty tech savvy and has a great tech savvy friend, both of whom have helped me do or explain in non-techy terms how to do things. I am going to share these tips with you.

How to Create External and Internal Hyperlinks

My first two blogging 101 tips were how to create a custom email address on cPanel and Gmail and how to create a custom email signature. This month I would like to show you how to create external and internal hyperlinks for your blog posts. The tutorial focuses on the WordPress platform however the steps are basically the same for any other platform (they just might be called or worded differently). However, the hyperlink button looks the same everywhere (as far as I know) even email.

First, let’s define external and internal hyperlinks.

An external hyperlink is a hyperlink that takes a viewer away from your site and to another site. Thus a link to a different blog or a product on Amazon would be an external link.

An internal hyperlink is a hyperlink to another page (blog post) or resource (like a photo).

Basically, internal hyperlinks keep the reader on your site while external hyperlinks send them to another website. Both kinds of hyperlinks are extremely useful and are widely used.

How to create an external hyperlink:

1. Click on the URL (web address) of the site you wish to link too.
2. Right click with your mouse and select Copy.
3. Return to your editing screen.
4. Highlight the text you wish to hyperlink with your cursor.
5. Click on the insert/edit link button. 
6. Under Enter destination URL, in the box labeled URL type or paste the url to the other site.
7. Optional – Check the box below the URL box that says, “Open link in new window/tab”
8. Click Add Link at the bottom to save your hyperlink. 
9. Unselect your text by clicking anywhere on the page. Your text is now blue and underlined.

You have successfully created an external hyperlink.

How to create an internal hyperlink:

1. Highlight the text you wish to hyperlink with your cursor.
2. Click on the insert/edit link button. 
3. Under “Or link to existing content,” in the box labeled Search type the title of the post you wish to hyperlink to. You can also use the scrollbar to scroll through your posts.
4. Click on the post you want to hyperlink too.
5. Optional – Check the box below the URL box that says, “Open link in new window/tab”
6. Click Add Link at the bottom to save your hyperlink. 
7. Unselect your text by clicking anywhere on the page. Your text is now blue and underlined.

You have successfully created an internal hyperlink.

You need to remember to be consistent with your hyperlinks. If you create a hyperlink to an external site and you check the box to open in a new window/tab, then ALWAYS check that box. If when you create a hyperlink to an internal page, you uncheck the box to open in a new window/tab, then ALWAYS uncheck that box. Personally, when I create external hyperlinks I set them to open in a new window/tab by checking the box. When I create internal hyperlinks I make sure the check box for open in a new window/tab is unchecked. Whichever way you decide to do it, just remember to be consistent… your readers will thank you. 🙂

Creating external and internal hyperlinks is not complicated. Just remember to be consistent in your formatting.

I hope that the external and internal hyperlinks tutorial helps you and saves you some headaches too. I’m working on some more tutorials for the next few months. Is there anything you would like to see?

What kinds of post would you like to see in these Blogging 101 posts?

Have a blessed day!

Brandi

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