Links are the way you can tell your visitors about other sites you recommend. These can be your sites – your photos page on Flickr, another blog or website you maintain, your page on LinkedIn or any link. Since you can promote any link, these can also be links to other sites that you would like to recommend.
In the WordPress world these links are sometimes called your blogroll. This is based on the original idea that this is where you would endorse/recommend other blogs. However, in practice, most blogs use these feature as links to many other types of sites and not just to other blogs.
Adding a new link to your sidebar
Instructions on Adding a Link
- Login to your WordPress blog and start at the dashboard
- Select Links
- Select Add New
- Enter the name – this is the text that will be displayed to your visitors
- Enter in the URL – always a good idea to cut and paste this to avoid typos
- Enter in the description – this too will be displayed, in this case in the hover box over the text
- Select (or create new) Categories. The link categories work similar to your post categories in that they allow you to organize your links.
- Target will allow you to decide if clicking on the link opens a new window or replaces what is there (your blog) in the current window.
- Optionally you can add information on your relationship to this blog; an image, an RSS feed and even your own rating of the site you are linking to.
- Update link and you are set!
Wrap-Up
As you work to increase the Search Engine Optimization of your site, other bloggers linking to you site can help your optimization – particularly if the other blogger has an established site with good traffic. It is not uncommon to return the favor and then add that other blog to your own blogroll.
See my Using WordPress series for more tutorials on how to use WordPress!
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