eComm Tips

One question that I get a lot is, “How do I create a link in my article submissions?” Most article directories do not use a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor, meaning that you have to actually put in HTML code in order to create a link for your article. So, here is the basic idea of what to do.

1- Write Out Your Author Bio

I would recommend that before you even consider creating any links for your article, you should write the author bio first. This is the final paragraph, sometimes called the “Resource Box” where you put in the little blurb about yourself or your site. Make sure that you use 1-2 of your keyword phrases in this bio so you can turn them into links.

2- Decide Which Page You’re Going to Link to

When you’re doing article submissions, it is a good idea to do some deep linking whenever appropriate. Deep linking is when you link to another page within the site rather than just the home page. This helps you to create a good link popularity for the whole site, not just the home page (I’ll probably talk about this more in a future post).

So once you’ve chosen your 1-2 keyword phrases, go to your site and grab the URL (address) of the pages that are most appropriate for you to link to with those phrases.

3- Create the Link

To create the link you’re going to need a little bit of HTML code. Let’s do an example and say that I am going to create a link for the keyword phrase ‘website marketing’, and I’m going to link it to http://www.ecommtips.com. I’ll break the code down into two parts: what goes before the phrase and what goes after the phrase.

Before the Phrase
What you need to put before the phrase is this: <a href=”http://www.ecommtips.com”> but of course you would replace it with your own address.

After the Phrase
After the phrase you would put this: </a>

So, once it’s all said and done, the code to create a hyperlink will look like this: <a href=”http://www.ecommtips.com”>website marketing</a> when you insert it into the “Author Bio” or “Resource Box.”  But, when the article is published it will look like this: website marketing.

There you go! That’s all you need to do to create a hyperlink for an article submission!

Code Variations

One thing I’ve learned from submitting to different article directories is that different directories like to see the code slightly differently sometimes. Here are some variations:

<a href=”http://www.ecommtips.com”>
<a href=http://www.ecommtips.com>

Notice that the second one has not quotation marks around the address. This is the way that ArticleDashboard.com prefers it. Just use trial and error. The variation I showed you in the original example is the more common one, but every now and then you may need to use this variation.

Happy Linking!