How to create anchor links in wordpress & Blogger – Jump links

This post is all about jump links and how to create anchor links in wordpress & Blogger. So let’s start this article with useful anchor links within this post.

Contents for Anchor links:

• What are anchor link or Jump links
• When & why to use anchor links
• How to create anchor links in wordpress
• WordPress plugins for anchor links
• How to create anchor links in Blogger
• Conclusion

What are anchor links or Jump Links?

Anchor links or jump links are special kind of links that is pointing or linking to specific part of the page. So instead of landing in top location it will jump to specific part of the page. It’s better to call it jump links rather than anchor links because it lets users to jump to particular location without scrolling the page.

Related: Do follow and No follow links – The difference

When & Why to use anchor links or jump links

Internal linking is more beneficial for both you and users and we made a post on benefits of internal linking.  Anchor links can be used for both internal linking purpose and linking within the content as we did above. There is nothing like when to use anchor links? At any instance if you find that the jump links is going to help your user, then you can.

1. If you are writing a long post then you can help your users by adding table of contents as we did above. So instead of scrolling users can jump to particular element.
2. You can use anchor links while linking to your other pages, so instead of reading the whole article readers will land at right location.
3.  Jump links can be used as a button at the bottom of the page saying “go to top”

Related: Canonical URL for SEO

How to create anchor links in wordpress

Anchor link or jump link can be added at any tags from H1 to H6 and also you can add it in paragraphs. Let’s see how to create anchor links in wordpress.

For easy understanding let’s start this with a good example. Say you are writing a detailed post about Photoshop tutorial and you are dividing it to several parts.

<h2>Part 1: Introduction to Photoshop</h2>

<h3> Interface </h3>

<h2>Part 2: Basic Tools</h2>

<h2> Part 3: Layers </h2> and it goes on. For better user experience adding jump links that is table of contents at the top of the page would be best. But before adding you must create anchor links.

To create anchor link open your wordpress post HTML/Text editor and not visual editor. You will see the h2 and h3 titles normally like this <h2> Part 3: Layers </h2>. Now to create anchor link you must add an id attribute like this <h2 id=”layers”> Part 3: Layers </h2> and you can follow this for all h1 to h6 tags.

To add an anchor link to paragraph open you HTML editor and add <a id=”anchor link text”> </a> your paragraph starts here.

Testing anchor links: You have created anchor links to test this publish the post and check you anchor link by adding #anchor link text at the end of the URL. For example yousitename.com/photoshop-tutorial/#layers jumps straight to layers section.

WordPress plugins for Anchor links

You can use better anchor links that adds jump links at the top of each page. Also you can use Ultimate TinyMCE in which you can do more from your visual editor.

How to create anchor links in Blogger

Creating anchor links in Blogger is same as we did for wordpress, but in Blogger we don’t have plugins. Open your Blogger blog post and choose HTML editor and locate the spot where you wish to add anchor links.  To add your anchor links in heading, subheading and minor heading add it like this <h3 id=”anchortext” style=”text-align: left;”> Title</h3> . Add anchor links for paragraphs like this <a id=”anchortext”></a> and start your paragraph here.

Now publish your content and to check the anchor or jump links just add #your anchor id at the end of the URL.

Related: SEO friendly URL structure

Conclusion

Wikipedia is one of the best examples where you can see anchor links.  Anchor links will greatly help your site visitors for easy navigation. You can help them by adding table of contents at top, by internal linking to specific element of you site and more. So as a blogger you must best practice on adding both anchor links and internal links whenever and wherever necessary.

Hope both Blogger and WordPress users found this useful on creating anchor or jump links in your site. Please share and leave your comments below. Subscribe to get the latest updates from us.