Create a text link in WordPress – to an external website, an email address or to an existing internal page/post. Also known as a hyperlink.
What is a hyperlink?
Really, a hyperlink is just the same as a link – and the word hyperlink is much less common these days, almost old school. We normally just say ‘link’. A link is the ability to click or tap on words, an image or a button to then visit another page or document, like a PDF.
Links and search engines
Links are a strong SEO factor. Search engines will rank a page higher when they see useful links throughout the content so include them whilst you write.
Try to create a smooth and interesting experience for your visitors.
Let’s jump into the tutorial to add text links to WordPress. Just have at hand the URL (web address) or email address you’d want to link to.
The link icon in WordPress
The link icon could look like either of these below:
They represent the links of a chain.
When you highlight text in the WordPress Gutenberg (Block) Editor notice that a toolbar appears, top left.
In the image below, I have highlighted text and the toolbar appears, letting me select the link icon.
Once you click the link icon, you can type or paste in the URL. This would be the place you want to link to.
How to highlight text
Highlight the text you’d like to link. You can do this one of three ways:
- Place your cursor just before the first word. When you click down, hold and drag to the end of the word or sentence.
- Double click a word to highlight it, hold the mouse down. Continue to highlight the following words by clicking anywhere on them.
- Double click a word to highlight it. Hold shift down and use the arrow key to tab right, highlighting more words.
Create a text link in WordPress
With your text highlighted now click the WordPress LINK icon.
A box appears, which displays a text field.
To create a text link:
- Type or paste the website then hit the submit icon (an arrow).
External websites must always be proceeded with https:// - To link to an email address type mailto: before the address. Ie. mailto:[email protected].
- Select a specific page on the WordPress site. Start to type the page title and WordPress will find the page or post. When you see the correct one select it.
The selected text automatically becomes a link. Always save the page once you make an edit.
NB. A really fast way to create a text link is to have the URL copied to your clipboard. Highlight the text you want to link and simple do a control-P to paste the link. It works!
More WordPress link options
More advanced options are available when creating text links.
To find these options just highlight the text then click the LINK icon.
Open in a new tab: will open a new tab when the link is clicked.
Search engine guidelines prefer that you DO NOT force visitors to open links in a new tab. The visitor should be left to make a decision.
It’s also for search engine reasons that you have two more options here.
Mark a link as nofollow if you’d prefer search engine crawlers not to associate your website with the external site. It basically tells the search engine to ignore the link.
Here’s more from Backlinko about nofollow links.
Mark a link as sponsored to show search engines the link is an advertisement or a paid-for link.
Save and check your WordPress text links
Remember to save and then check that all the links work correctly on the front end of your website.
Once on the front end, refresh the page so you can view the updates.
Link checker
I advise using a plugin like Link Checker on any WordPress website that contains a lot of links. This will help you to maintain links, updating them when websites change or web pages move.
Dud links harm search engine rank, so it is worth staying on top.
