Margaret Duarte

Visionary Fiction

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Link Field for Beginners

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When I first started blogging, I wondered how I could link my posts to other blogs, articles, or Web sites, to give my readers the opportunity to simply click and go there for more information.  Not that I wanted to send readers away from my blog, but just offer them a service.

Then I discovered the Link field.

You’ll find the Link icon (insert/edit link) across the top of the post entry field (hover your mouse over it and it will say insert/edit link).  When you want to create a clickable link in your blog post, you just:

  1. Highlight (click and drag) the text in your post that you want to make clickable (Dummies.com, for instance, or Add a Link to Your Blog).
  2. Click the Link icon.
  3. If the text you highlighted is a URL (Dummies.com), you’re done.
  4. Otherwise (as in the case of Add a Link to Your Blog), enter the full URL of the Web site you’re linking to (http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-blogger-to-add-a-link-to-your-blog.html) into the field in the pop-up window and click OK.

An easy way to make sure you get the correct link is to go to the Web page you’re linking to and copy the URL from the address bar (Ctrl+C), as I did with the sample link above, and then paste it (Ctrl+V)into the field in the pop-up window.

A word about permalinks.  A permalink is the unique Web address for an individual post, the page’s permanent link.  It’s a good idea to use the permalink and not the blog’s home page because the blog usually gets pushed down the line by more recent blogs, making it hard to find. 

To see if you did okay, you can test if the link works in Preview.  Just double click and see where it takes you.  Then close preview and save your post.

With a little practice, you’ll get a lot of use out of the Link feature.

As always, thanks for stopping by,

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About Margaret Duarte

Former middle school teacher, Margaret Duarte, lives on a California dairy farm with a herd of “happy cows,” a constant reminder that the greenest pastures lie closest to home. Margaret earned her creative writing certificate through UC Davis Extension and has since published four novels in her “Enter the Between” visionary fiction series: Between Will and Surrender, Between Darkness and Dawn, Between Yesterday and Tomorrow, and Between Now and Forever. Her poem and story credits include SPC Tule Review; The California Writers Club Literary Review; finalist in the 2017 SLO Nightwriters Golden Quill Writing Contest; First Place winner for fiction in 2016, Second Place winner for fiction in 2018, Honorable Mention for fiction in 2019, and Gold winner for fiction in 2020 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS Book Awards Competition; 2019 California Author Project winner for adult fiction.

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Comments

  1. Cathy Kennedy says

    Good tip, Margaret. I've done this a time or two and it really makes my post stand out like the big boys who have been doing this forever. It gives your post that polished appeal. Thanks for sharing!

  2. Margaret Duarte says

    Hi Cathy. Most bloggers have probably figured out how "Link" in Blogger works, but I'm technologically challenged, so it took me a while to catch on. Hope this post helps out the few who are still not taking advantage of this great tool.

  6. Margaret Duarte says

    Hi Rob. A "link textbox" just below the "title field?" I assume you're talking about when you're doing a "New Post" entry. I haven't noticed a "Link" textbox other than the one on the tool bar across the post entry field. Where exactly is this link textbox?