How to create links in Nautilus

May 2010

Links are the backbone of the web. When you are writing for your website you are likely to include lots of them within your copy. Both links to other parts of your website to draw customers into your story and links to pages outside your website to enhance and support your story.

The best place to have links in your copy is at the beginning of a sentence, the second best place is at the end of a sentence. Both these methods let the reader read your copy without the interruption of a link (usually underlined) in the middle of a sentence - a link which often distracts them from what they are reading.

External Links

Start with the end in mind - where are you linking to? You can get the address you are linking to from the address bar near the top of your browser window:

Copy this address e.g. http://www.spiral.co.nz/contact/default.aspx

Click on the link icon within the Nautilus editor

  either     or      depending on your version of the software.

A link dialogue box will open - paste (CTRL-V) the address into the Source input box.

The remaining attributes available in the link dialogue box are optional. Leave the Target drop down blank to select the default target action for links or  select:
  Self - opens the link in the frame with the current focus
  Blank - always opens the link in a new window, without frames
  Parent - opens the link in the parent frame of the current window

The Title input box gives you the option of adding a title to your link. In the above example you might add a title of "Spiral Contact Link"

Internal Links

If you are linking to another page within your website the process is a little simpler. Click on the link icon as for an external link. The link dialogue box will open.

Expand the Source drop-down and choose http:

In the Source input box, enter just the last part of the address - e.g.default.aspx?page=1234 where 1234 is the number for the page you want to link to.

and there you have it - please contact us if you want a refresher or a new manual sent to you on how to update your site with Nautilus.