This month we turn our attention to links and anchors and give you some tips on how to use them effectively within the Verve WYSIWYG editor.
Links
As the name suggests, links are used to 'direct' users to other pages of your website, or to external websites or to specific files which are web accessible.
Links help to make content much more user-friendly by providing more content options for users to explore. Reciprocal links between different websites can also help to increase search engine optimization for both sites, depending on keywords, relevance and traffic.
Within Verve, you can choose to:
• link to another internal or external page or file by opening that page/file in the existing window
• link to another internal or external page or file by opening that page/file in a new window (if implemented in your Verve site)
See an illustrated example
TIP: When you’re linking to another page on your own website, replace the page by opening the link in an existing window. If you are linking to an external website or even a file within your own library, open in a new window to ensure that the user ultimately returns to the original page of your website, keeping them in context and ensuring that your own valuable content doesn’t get lost in the process.
TIP: Always preview your page before publishing to ensure that your links are sending the user to the correct page/website and are also opening in the appropriate manner i.e. new or existing windows.
Anchors
Anchors are used to provide structure to lengthy pages of text by breaking down headings which then link directly to anchored text within a page.
Wherever possible, you should try to avoid long, scrolling pages of text, however if a page simply has to be broken into a few heading areas then anchors are an effective way to allow people to easily navigate directly to topics or headings of interest.
See an illustrated example
TIP: Always try to edit and finalise content your content first before setting anchors and links on a page to make sure that there’s less room for error.