I remember when I started blogging, and there were so many things I didn’t know how to do. Some tutorials I found were way too complex for me to comprehend, since I was just learning the ropes. I thought I could maybe help with a few things, using simple terms. I know there are quite a few giveaway entrants who have started blogs specifically for entering blog giveaways, but it occurred to me that some may not know how to properly link. I hope you will find this helpful.
This is a quick tutorial on how to link to a website.
Many bloggers offer extra entries if you blog about their giveaways, by linking back to their blog. It helps the blogger in many ways if you blog about their giveaway, and doing it correctly is important.
Here is an example of what you might say when blogging about a giveaway:
“Head over to Eighty MPH Mom where you can win a $20 gift card.”
or you might say:
“Enter the gift card giveaway at Eighty MPH Mom”
Now you might be wondering where you will put the link (or how). You should make your anchor words (the words that the link will be attached to) the name of the blog. In this case, you would do the link for “Eighty MPH Mom”. It would look like this:
“Head over to Eighty MPH Mom where you can win a $20 gift card.”
How do you get the link there? If you are on blogger here is what you do while writing your post:
When you click on “link”, a box will pop up asking for the url/website address that you want to link to. You would type in (or copy and paste), the web address of the blog you want to link to, or the web address of the giveaway page (for the giveaway you are entering – some bloggers prefer you do this). Make sure the “http://” is in this address. {http://www.blogname.com}. When you are done, click “Okay”.
Voila!
WordPress works the same way – in your post, you will highlight the phrase that you want to be “clickable” {that will take your readers to the desired website}, click ”link”, and enter the website address.
When you are linking to a blog, or directly to a blog giveaway, do not make the link from the words “here” or “click here” or {anything random} like this:
The name of the blog/website should always be included in the “anchor text”.
Let’s recap:
CORRECT:
YES!! “Head over to Eighty MPH Mom where you can win a $20 gift card.”
INCORRECT:
NO!! NO!! NO!! “You can enter Eighty MPH Mom’s $20 gift card giveaway – click here“
Please, please also make sure you spell the website (or blog) name correctly when linking.
Read this post on saying thank you to a blog owner when you win a giveaway, for other good info!
Do you have other questions on blogging? If you have any questions, I will try my best to answer them.
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LOL God love ya. I am so glad you posted this, because I know how many people aren’t aware of how such a small thing like a link can actually make a big difference for the blogger. I sure didn’t at first!
Thanks LOL – I got to thinking – why not just post about it?!
You have got to be kidding me? It’s that easy? I had my husband write an HTML code that I have saved to my desktop where I can just add the url and the words to click on and I enter it into the HTML tab….all this time….all this time!! Thanks for the tip…this should definitely make the process go faster!!!
LOL – yep! That’s all there is to it! It will automatically put the code in there for you. If you were linking, say something on your sidebar, that’s when the html coding would be used! I hope it helps!
Great info that is easy! I’ve had a blog for 2 years now but I do all my coding with html and never did it this way before. I might just give it a try! Of course though it is easy to link with html too. It’s just this:
Diabetic Snacker
I’ve been doing the “click here” for readers who don’t know that you can click on the name to activate the link…. why is that bad?
Part of the reason bloggers want to entrants to blog about their giveaways is to help spread the word. The other reason is it helps a blogger in search engines. By doing “click here” it doesn’t help the blogger in search engines. Does that help at all? LOL If not, shoot me an email okay?
So many people use the word HERE. Go here, even when they are writing a post for sponsors, SEO is just as easy as what you are posting here. Great instructions!
Thank you! Right – click here, or here or any of those are horrible for SEO, especially for sponsors. Hopefully this will help!
This is an interesting article. Thanks for sharing.
Very helpful
This is interesting. I have a contest blog that I only post giveaways on. I always give the blog name doing the giveaway, but then say “click here” to enter. It would be better to re-word it?
Yes…much better! I would just put the emphasis/link on the blog name. There are several reasons for this – it will help your blog and the bloggers blog in searches.
Maybe I will do 2 links or something because I can’t think of how to phrase it LOL
Jennifer, so super I had to post it on my site! If you have any other gems like this and want to do a guest post, let me know!!! (I actually am going to be away in August and could use a few posts to flesh out the blog while I’m away!) Here is the link for you, but you should get a ping as well: http://www.betteryourblog.com/archives/92
Hope you like it!
Thank you so much for the kind words – I appreciate it!
Great post! It is hard to know what the right way to do some things is. Thanks!