How To Create a Hyperlink in Your Blog Post

This short story, available on Kindle for only $.99, is the first in the series Misadventures In La Mosquitia

I have not been blogging on WordPress for very long, but one of the things I made sure to learn quickly was how to do a hyperlink in my posts.  The reason for this is probably obvious to most people, but there are some who don’t even realize what a hyperlink is.  For those of you who fall into that category, I’ll explain it now, so that never again will you be able to say that.  A hyperlink is a word, phrase or string of characters that, when clicked on, will cause your browser or app to take you to a different place in the document, open another document, or navigate to another website on the internet.  The web address or path will not show unless you look for it.  It is hidden behind the text of your document, if you will.  What I mean is this:  If I want people to see the words “The Lost Flip Flop by Roger Engle” and be able to click on those words and go directly to the website, (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0071I3JN4), where they can buy my new short story.  I should put a hyperlink behind the words “The Lost Flip Flop by Roger Engle”.

How Do I Do That?

Now we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty.  You’ll need the web address or the path of the place you  want to go, (I keep a bunch of my most common links on a post it note on my desk top.  Onenote also works, or just open a new tab and go to the page you’re wanting to hyperlink your text to) and you’ll need some text to work with.  So before we start this, open your blog on another tab and start a new post.  Type some text and highlight something you want to put a hyperlink in.

Like this:

Here I am about to add a hyperlink for the "buy-link"to my new short story...

Next, you’ll need to highlight the address I told you to get ready, the one to which you’re planning to hyperlink your text.  (Be sure to include the “http://” part of it.)  Once it’s highlighted, copy it.  You can use ctrl+c or use the right-click menu to copy it.

I've highlighted the buy-link for my short story...

Now we’re going back to the post edit page and verify that our text is still highlighted.  If it’s not we need to highlight it again.  Then we go to the top of the editing window and look for the little square button with a picture in it resembling a chain’s links.  That’s the hyperlink button.  Click it.

After highlighting your text you want to click on this button...

It’s going to open a hyperlink editing “wizard” that looks like this.

When you open the wizard it will already have the "http://" highlighted.

Now you need to right-click on the highlighted text in the top field and click paste. (as plain text)  Then you can name the link and decide how you  want it to open so that your dialogue box will look something like this:

I always try to remember to have it open in a separate tab or window so the person reading my blog will be able to return there by clicking on the tab instead of having to remember the website it was on and navigate back there.

Once you’ve done all that, click on the blue button at the bottom of the dialogue box that says “Add Link” and you’re done!  You should now have a hyperlink in the text of your blog that looks something like this:

Now when you publish your post, click on the colored text and it should take you directly to the address or site you linked it to.

Have fun doing hyperlinks.  Please comment here if you like this article or have any questions.

Related articles

• Gmail’s Shortcut for Inserting Hyperlinks (mt-soft.com.ar)
• Lesson Seven – How to Link Your Posts (wordpressfordunces.wordpress.com)
• Add Hyperlinks to Gmail Messages with a Keyboard Shortcut [Gmail] (lifehacker.com)