iWeb Tutorial: Link to external webpages

When you create multiple pages on your site, iWeb takes care to link them all together, making sure your readers can access every page no matter which pagethey may be reading. There are, of course, ways to limit this, should you not wish your navigation menu to become so full as to lose its usefulness. But if your site is simple, iWeb’s automatic link creation helps you get online in next to no time.

But what if you wanted to be a little more advanced, and be able to link to a page that someone else created on the web? Better still, how about linking from other sites to your own, as a means of boosting traffic to your own pages?

Step 1: Find an address
Open your web browser and find the page you’d like to link to. If you’re using Safari or Firefox, use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+L to highlight the address.

Step 2: Into iWeb
Copy the address (Command+C) and head to iWeb. There’s no need to display the actual address on your site – just highlight part of your text and link to it.

Step 3: The Inspector
With the desired section highlighted (you can also select an image if you prefer), reveal the Inspector by clicking on its blue button, lower-right of the interface.

Step 4: Already copied
Select the Link Inspector (second from the right) and click on the ‘Enable as a hyperlink’ tick box. You’ll notice that the address you copied is already in the URL field.

Step 5: Publishing
The easiest way to link to your site from another is in a forum or comments section. Start by publishing your site using the settings supplied by your web host.

Step 6: Visit your site
Once the upload process is complete, iWeb will offer you the option of visiting the site online. Do so to launch your browser and see the results of your work.

Step 7: Copy the link
Locate the page you’d like to link to (it doesn’t have to be the main page; you can link to any one you desire) then repeat the process carried out in steps 1 and 2.

Step 8: Add a comment
Add a comment or new post in a forum of your choice and paste your address in there (either directly as a URL or embedded within text, as per step 2).

Step 9: Monitor your visitors
Then it’s just a question of sitting back and checking how many visits you’re getting from the various places you’ve linked to, using your host’s traffic analysis.

(Click on the image below to view the annotations)