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Use Links to Help Your Readers and Search Engines See your Site's Usefulness

There are 2 kinds of links to consider for your site


Internal links

 • Links to other pages of your own site give your readers an order in which you would like them to read and navigate your site. 
You will see how useful it is to explicitly let your reader know where they will go when links are clicked. For example: 
These links can often be within the text of your page. But the side menu tabs are also links to every page of your site. 


External links

 • Links towards other sites are often useful for content that has no place on your own site. 
Often a good place for this type of link is at the end of your chapter, or at the bottom of your page. It is also not a bad idea to have external links open in a new window.
Links toward other sites also signify an important quality of good websites: That they are not a dead-end on the web, rather they are part of a larger network of sites. 


Here are some handy tips to help you implement links
in a meaningful and useful manner

  • Links should be a different color than the main text, so that readers are able to easily identify them as such. This has been programed into each of the SimDif themes, but if you choose to change the colors, keep in mind that links should be clearly visible and identifiable as links.

  • Don't be afraid of actually writing "click here to [link]..." before the link.
    This will better guide your readers. Some people are new to the web.

  • Importantly ... you should put the link on the keyword(s) or expressions that describe the actual content of the place to which the link will take your reader.

  • Links are essential elements for Google to understand how your site is structured, and what it is actually talking about.
links are labels leading to the corresponding content
links are labels leading to the corresponding content

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You are getting very close to having a functional page for your readers and for search engines. There are only a few more steps. Now it is time to consider