Steve Guttridge: aka Stay At Home Bum Marketer

Basic HTML: Creating Links to Other Pages

(with updates by editorial staff)

By Joe Burns

(with updates by editorial staff)

Use these to jump around or read it all
Creating A
Hypertext Link
Here’s What’s Happening
E-Mail Links From
Your Page

Creating A Hypertext Link

Today you will learn only one basic technique: How to create a (hyper) link to another page. It’s a set tag format that’s part of the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) like any of the others you may have seen. Once you learn the format, you can make as many links as you want to any other page you want.

Now an example: What is below would create a link to the HTML Goodies home page.

<A HREF=”http://www.htmlgoodies.com”>Click Here For HTML Goodies</A>

Here’s What’s Happening

* A stands for Anchor. It begins the link to another page.
* HREF stands for Hypertext REFerence. That’s a nice, short way of saying to the browser, “This is where the link is going to go.”
* http://www.htmlgoodies.com is the FULL ADDRESS of the link. Also notice that the address has an equal sign in front of it and is enclosed in quotes. Why? Because it’s an attribute of the Anchor tag, a command inside of a command.
* Where it reads “Click Here For HTML Goodies” is where you write the text you want to appear on the page. What is in that space will appear on the page for the viewer to click. So, write something that denotes the link.
* /A ends the entire link command.

Here’s what will appear on the page using the command above…

Click Here For HTML Goodies

Now, without clicking, simply lay your pointer on the blue words. You’ll see the address of the link you created come up along the bottom of the browser window, down where it usually reads “Document Done”.

What To Write For The Link?

There are a couple different schools of thought on this. One suggests that what you write for links should be quite blatant. This includes text like “Click here for this” or “Here’s a link to…”. The other states that since the hypertext links will be blue (or whatever color they’re set to), that the links should be just another word in the text set up as a link.

In reality it depends what you’re doing. If you’re building a menu bar down the side of your page (like down the left hand side of this page) then the last thing you want is for every single link to say “Click here for HTML Primer 1 – an introduction” – simply because your menu would be as wide as your page…

However, for accessibility reasons you should try to make sure your links make sense out of context – diasbled people navigating your page can jump around hyperlinks using the “tab” key (there should be one on the left of your keyboard too). If the have skipped directly to your hyperlink which says “here” then they won’t know what it’s about. If they skip to one that says “HTML Primer: Introduction” then they know whether or not they want to click.

_________________________________________________________

E-Mail Links From Your Page

This is what’s known as a mailto: command. It follows the same coding scheme as the hypertext link above. What this format does is place blue wording on the screen that people can click to send you a piece of e-mail.

Here’s the pattern:

<A HREF=”mailto:jburns@htmlgoodies.com”>Click Here To Write Me</A>

Notice it’s the same format as a link except in a link you write “mailto:” in place of the http:// and your e-mail address in place of the page address. Yes, you still need the tag at the end. Please notice there is NO SPACE between the colon and the e-mail address.

Here’s what you get using the “mailto:” command above:

Click Here To Write Me

Go ahead, click on it. I know you’re dying to. You’ll get an e-mail dialogue box addressed to me. Then you can write if you want. The same thing will work for you. Just place your e-mail address in place of mine following the format above.

However, please be very careful when using this, for two reasons:

1. If the person only has a web based email account, and hasn’t configured an email program on their computer (e.g. if you use Hotmail or Gmail instead of Microsoft Outlook) then it will open their email program for the first time and try to walk them through setting it up. This isn’t a good idea if they’re new to computers…
2. There are now little programs called ‘bots’ which wander round the internet looking for email addresses to send spam (junk emails) to. If you don’t want to receive them, then one part of this is not publishing your address on the internet. So think long and hard before you use a mailto!

And that wraps up Primer #4. Next time we get into the fun part of the World Wide Web, images.

Creating A
Hypertext Link
Here’s What’s Happening
E-Mail Links From
Your Page

By Justin Michie
Bum Marketing or the Bum Marketing Method is an simple is a practically fool proof variation of article marketing that allows you to earn money online from the commissions of affiliate products, sales of your own products, AdSense ads and so on.

Here’s how it works: You write keyword optimized articles about under-exposed niches, submit them to popular article websites, let the search engines pick them up, earn affiliate commissions, get opt-in signups or make money from selling your own products.

Bum Marketing was invented and popularized by Travis Sago of www.bummarketingmethod.com. Many people call Bum Marketing, Bum Marketing because it is supposed to be so easy that even a bum off the street can do it. I don’t disagree, however I think the real reason it is called Bum Marketing is because it is one of those extremely rare occasions where it doesn’t take money to make money.

In a nutshell, here’s how it works:

1. You find an untapped, low competition niche.
2. Then you find an affiliate program with a complimentary product, which pays a decent commission.
3. Then you research and find low competition keywords that you can write articles about.
4. Next you write a series of articles based on the low competition keyword or keyword phrase.
5. Then you submit your article to popular article directors so they get picked up by Google and the other major search engines.
6. And finally you earn affiliate commissions, get opt-in signups, make money from selling your own products or earn AdSense revenue.

If you follow the simple steps, you’re practically guaranteed to earn money online – all it takes is time.

One of the main goals of Bum Marketing is to get your articles onto the first page in Google as well as Yahoo, MSN, AOL and others. The easiest way to accomplish this is by writing keyword rich articles for niches and keywords that aren’t overpopulated. A placement on Google’s first page will assure that your article will be one of the first seen whenever someone searches for the keyword or niche your article is targeting.

Some of the Main Benefits of Bum Marketing Include

• Earn money online in less then a week – practically guaranteed
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• It’s a fool proof way to earn affiliate commissions
• Builds name recognition and branding
• You don’t need a website, email list or even a reputation
• It’s extremely low risk – all you have to loose is time

The whole point of Bum Marketing is not to get your articles clicked on from people searching the article directories. The Bum Marketing method is really about getting as many articles of decent quality ranking highly in the search engines in order to get traffic to your affiliate links, sales pages, AdSense pages, opt-in pages and so on. The main goal is to get your articles into the top 10 Google results – meaning on Google’s first page.

That way when someone searches for your keyword phrase in Google and the other major search engines (Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc.) your article shows up. Then they click on it, read it, and hopefully click on the links contained in your resource box.

As long as you have time to spend on it, Bum Marketing is one of the only sure ways to make money online. In fact, I don’t know of anyone who has tried Bum Marketing with perseverance and hasn’t earned anything.
Bum Marketing Blog
Discover the secrets to Bum Marketing and how you can create a practically guaranteed steady monthly income online without spending a dime.