How to Make a Live, Clickable Links on Your Posts

Someone asked  me how to make the links they put for their nominees live. This is in reference to blog award posts. However you can use these same steps to make any word or phrase on your post clickable and it will go to whatever site you want.

 STEP ONE

First – go to the link that you want to make live. This is going to be the Home Page of the blog that you want to link.

Next  – Copy the link……like this……

Highlight the URL  which is in your address bar. It starts with https://

(That is the URL for the blog you want to make a live link for.)

Make sure you highlight the entire thing, even if it is long.

How do you Highlight something?

The way I highlight is to put the curser at the beginning of the thing you are highlighting, then hold down the left button on the mouse and slide it across the letters of the url (or whatever you are copying)

As you are using the mouse with the button down and sliding it over the words, the words should turn blue (or another color…it is blue on my computer)

After the entire https address is blue, then let go of the button and stop.

STEP TWO

 Save that to your computer temporarily by hitting two buttons at the same time…

.Control (ctrl..lower left on your keyboard) and the letter C, (make sure C is upper case)

When you hit control and C at the same time, it saves whatever you have highlighted in blue.

STEP THREE

 Go back yo your post. Find the blog address you want to make a live link.

Highlight the entire URL  that you typed on your post, that you want to make into a live link, ,

Make sure it turns a color. Leave it highlighted like that.

STEP FOUR

Now you need to use a wordpress tool which is at the top of your post. I will explain. It is not hard at all.

You will see things across the top of the box that you are typing the post in. Make sure you are in the mode for editing or typing a new post. 

You will see the  letter B, which is to make something Bold. Then you will see the  letter I slanted sideways, which is to make something italic. 

Keep going across and look at all the symbols you see…..thnext is ABC with a strike out line through it, Then you see bullets and numbering. Then you see a pair of quotes…..

then you see things for aligning the post left, right or middle of the page. 

After those, you will see a funny looking symbol that looks like a paperclip. This is what you want. 

Hover your mouse over top  of that paperclip symbol and it should say Insert / Edit Link

(you can hover over each one to see what they are if you like)

Check to make sure the link you are making live is still highlighted. 

Then CLICK this Insert / Edit link button…

You will be given a pop up box that will allow you to paste that link into it. You want to Paste what you have previously copied (in step 2…your computer is still holding that..don’t worry)

Then you want to paste your link into the URL box like this….

You want to hit two buttons at the same time…. Control and the letter V. 

When you hit control and the letter V (capitol letter) you will paste whatever you previously copied.

Your copied link should now paste into that box which is asking for the URL. 

NOW your link should be live. You can check it by saving your post and then viewing it. Then click on the link and see what happens.

Summing Up

That is the long detailed version. Now we will sum up.

To copy something you highlight the words and then  hit Control and the letter C (Upper case C)

To paste it you highlight what you want to turn into a clickable link, then you hit   Control and the letter V ( Upper Case)

Control C = Copy

Control V = Paste

The tool at the top of your new post page (or edit post page) has symbols that you can hover over and it will tell you what they are.

The symbol that looks kind of like a paper clip is the INSERT LINK tool.

To copy the link you want to paste, you go to the site and highlight the URL from the address bar.

Then hit Control C and save it to the computer

Highlight the link that you typed 

Go back to your post.

Highlight the link you want to make live.

Go to the INSERT ? EDIT LINK tool and click

Paste your link into the box

Save your post and check the link.

Extras

I usually make it obvious that the links are clickable by a color  and / or underlining. You can use the tools at the top if the page to do any of this. Just highlight what you want to bold and then hit the B. 

Changing colors is the tool that is the letter A on the second line of your tools. The second line starts with word paragraph.  There is a drop down arrow after the A that has your colors. Do it the same way…HIghlight what you want to change color , select your color from the drop down list next to the A symbol. 

This sounds so much more complicated than it is. If I was sitting next to you..or even over the phone…I could show you easier and faster. Once you see how to do it, you will be able to show someone else and it will be easy for you to insert links into your posts from then on.

Put questions in the comments and I will go over anything that was unclear to you.