Lesson 3

Adding Links

Part of what makes web pages so dynamic is the very nature of HTML, or hypertext mark-up language. It is, by definition, a very interactive medium, allowing the reader to "jump" from one page to another. In order to do that, you must learn how to code a hypertext link.

Links are usually a different color than the normal text on the page and are almost always underlined. This helps the user easily identify what words are links and is a very good reason NOT to underline other words in your pages. It confuses your readers.

This code below will come between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.

Link Template

All link tags include an "anchor hypertext reference," <A HREF="http:// theURLof.the.webpage">, the words or image you want to use as the link, and a "closing tag," </A>.

So, your actual link would look like this:

<A HREF="http://www.mypage.com">My Page</A>

Be sure NOT to forget the closing tag, </A> on your links. If you do, the link will spill over to all words that follow it.

When you are linking to additional pages that you have created that are located in your own web directory, you don't have to include the entire URL. You can just use a relative address that looks like this:

<A HREF="page2.html">Page 2</A>

That link would point to a page entitle "page2.html" that you created and uploaded to the same directory that your "index.html" page was in.

Another type of link is an E-Mail link. These are very similar, but worded just a bit differently. Here is an example for you to copy and paste:

<A HREF="mailto:youremailaddress@yourserver.com">Email Me</A>

You can also include internal links to another place on the current web page, but we will save that for the more advanced users.