How
to Create a Link-To-Us Page
by
Mike Banks Valentine
Most webmasters are very aware of the value of
having quality links from relevant, on-topic links
from well regarded, high traffic web sites pointing
to their own site. Professional webmasters will
always provide linking graphics, instructions
and sample text to those webmasters willing to
link to them. The text you use in your recommended
linking instructions will very often be cut and
pasted without changes and this allows careful
choice in linking text to help build link relevancy.
What follows is a standard part of a serious linking
campaign, Instructions for setting up a "Link
to us" page from your own web site. If you wish
to cut and paste from this article, be certain
to be aware of the added space inserted after
each left facing bracket. They were inserted to
prevent the HTML code from disappearing in HTML
email readers such as those at AOL and other webmail
programs.
There is a little trick to providing the HTML
code for your visitors to see on your page
which requires some coding slight of hand. Due
to the nature of code, it is meant to be invisible
and making it show up as code on a web
page requires the following:
Those <
brackets >
that define HTML to a web browser make the contents
within them disappear, so you must use code that
defines a bracket, rather than using the bracket
itself. That code is <
for < the
left-facing bracket and >
for the >
right-facing bracket. So in order to make the
HTML show up on an HTML web page, you must use
< and
> in
place of all of those brackets in order for them
to show up on screen.
All
of those brackets have been represented in green
text on the page to help you be able to make more
sense of the code visually.
Choose "View" and then "Page
Source" from your browser menu. This
will let you see the code necessary to
display code in a web browser.
I recommend using a background color in the area
you've created to display your HTML to separate
it from the rest of the page. Here's the code
necessary to make a gray background, single-celled
table to display your linking code on a web page:
<table
bgcolor="#CCCCCC" width="371"
border="0" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="2">
<tr>
<td>
<
Your linking code would go here
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Using "comment" tags to show the start
and finish of your links.
Comment tags are designed to allow you to create
instructions or comments in HTML that don't show
up in a browser. A comment tag is meant to be invisible
too, so you will need to use those <
and >
characters to make THEM visible as well.
<!-- SearchEngineOptimism Link
END -->
will show up in a browser as
<!-- SearchEngineOptimism Link END -->
and when copied from your web page and pasted into
their web page HTML by your visitor, they will become
invisible code used in their HTML source.
The easiest link to provide is a text link and it
can be used in email as well as on a web page. Tbe
following is the text we provide at SearchEngineOptimism:
<table
bgcolor="#CCCCCC" width="371"
border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2">
<tr>
<td>
<center>
<!--
SearchEngineOptimism Text Link START -->
<A HREF="http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top">
SearchEngineOptimism 101<a/>
offers an entertaining and easy Search Engine
optimization tutorial to increase your business
VISIBLE on the web!<a/>
<!--
SearchEngineOptimism Text Link END -->
</center>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
This appears on a web page as follows:
< !-- SearchEngineOptimism Text Link
START -- >
<A HREF="http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top">
SearchEngineOptimism<a/> offers an
entertaining and easy Search Engine
Optimization tutorial to increase your business
VISIBILITY
on the web!<a/>
< !-- SearchEngineOptimism Text Link
END -- >
|
Note the TARGET="top" in the code? This
insures that if your link is used in a framed
site, that the resulting page will break out of
the frameset.
Displaying a banner or graphic for visitor
cut and paste
Clearly
this could get difficult showing much HTML code
as text, but let's look at how to show a graphic
on your page as well. It is a preferred method
of linking for some site owners and should be
one or your options on a good linking campaign
with allowances for different banner sizes, shapes
and colors to match differing webmaster tastes
and page layout preferences.
<table
bgcolor="#CCCCCC" width="499"
border="1" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td
width="475">
<!--
SearchEngineOptimism Link START -->
<A
HREF="http://www.SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top">
<CENTER>
<BR><FONT
FACE="arial, helvetica" size="1">
</A>
<CENTER>
<IMG
SRC="searchengineoptimism.gif" width="468"
height="60" alt="Wanna Be Seen?
Let SearchEngineOptimism show you how to gain
visibility for your business online!>
</center>
<A
HREF="http://www.SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top">
Search Engine tutorial about gaining visibility
on the web!</a>
</FONT>
</CENTER>
<!--
SearchEngineOptimism Link END -->
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
</table>
This appears as on YOUR web page as:
<!-- SearchEngineOptimism Link START
-->
<CENTER>
<A HREF="http://www.SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top">
<FONT FACE="arial, helvetica" size="1">
<IMG SRC="searchengineoptimism.gif" width="468"
height="60" alt="Let SearchEngineOptimism
show you how to gain visibility for your business
online!"> </A> <br>
<A HREF="http://www.SearchEngineOptimism.com/"
TARGET="_top"> Search Engine Optimization
tutorial about gaining visibility online</a>
</FONT> </CENTER>
<!-- SearchEngineOptimism Link END --> |
You must then provide a copy of any images you
are offering as linking graphics to download and
save from your page.
<table
width="499" border="1" cellpadding="0"
bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<tr>
<td
width="475">
<center>
<font
size="3" face="arial, helvetica">
<b>468X60
"Wanna Be Seen?" banner
</b>
</font>
<p>
<font size="3" face="arial,
helvetica">
<a
href="http://searchengineoptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/">
<img
src="searchengineoptimism.gif" width="468"
height="60" alt="Search Engine
Optimization tutorial about gaining visibility
online" border="0">
</a><br>
<a
href="http://www.Searchengineoptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/">
<font
size="2">Search
Engine Optimization </font>
<font
size="3" face="arial, helvetica">
</font>
</a>
<font
size="3" face="arial, helvetica">
<a
href="http://www.SearchEngineOptimism.com/">
<font
size="2">Tutorial
</font>
</a>
about gaining visibility online
</font>
</center>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
</table>
This appears on the page as the example below
shows:
Provide instructions to the novice webmaster as
to the selection and saving of any graphic image
when you provide logos, banners or graphics to
link to your site.
To save any of the images to your hard drive press
your right mouse button (Mac users hold down your
mouse button and a menu will pop up) click on
the option to "save this image" select a drive
and/or directory on your computer and you've got
it! Then cut and paste to your page the appropriate
HTML code from below the image you choose.
The importance of setting up a linking page on
your site can't be underestimated when it comes
to gaining that all-important traffic to your
site. It really is quite simple to do, no matter
how difficult it is to explain! ;-)
Good luck with your linking campaign!
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