Configuring Link Lists

Making a Link List is one of the best forms of navigation a site can have. A link list lets you keep all your links in a neat and ordered list on your blog. You can also use it to list other websites on your blog.

To make a Link List you simply need to go to your Page Elements and add a Link List gadget. Once you have added your Link List gadget you can start building it. Keep in mind the link list gadget does not automatically update as the Archive does. You will need to insert your links manually.

To put a link into the gadget you will need to understand what everything does inside the Link List. I will go over that below.

• Title: This is the name of the gadget its self.

• Number of Link to show in list: This will limit the links to how many links to show at one time. If you exceed this number it will show the top number while the bottom will remain hidden on your blog. 

• Sorting: This is how you want the links to display on your blog. As in what order the links will show up as.

1. Don't Sort: This will make newer post show at the top and older post at the bottom.
2. Sort Alphabetically: This will sort the links A-Z
3. Sort Reverse Alphabetically: This will sort the link Z-A

• New Site URL: This is the the location the link will take you to.

• New Site Name: This is the name of the link that will be visible.

Now the Edit and Delete you see next to each New Site Name is to edit them once you have added them on to your list.

The best way to get the URL and Name for the post would be to go into the Edit Post from your Dashboard or to look through your Archive.This is if your using it for links within your own site.

If your looking through the Edit Post from the Dashboard you will see all your post you have made. Now you will see a View and a Edit next to each one. Right Click the View and copy the link for one of your post. Once you have the link you will paste it in New Site URL. Then just type out the title of that post in New Site Name area. After you have done both of these click the Add button. This will add that link to the list. Repeat this for every post you want to be link to through this list. After your done just hit Save and all the links you just added will be put on your site. If you do not hit the save button at the bottom all your links will be lost.

Using Review Pages

Here is a little tip for those of you who do not want every link on every page. (This is also search engine friendly) This works great for blogs that have chapters, recipes or episodes.

You may have post in your blog titled like this below.

Example:

My Childhood Chapter 01
My Childhood Chapter 02
My Childhood Chapter 03

Or

Chicken and Broccoli
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Noodles

Instead of adding each one of these post to your Link List you can make what I like to call a review page. This is basically a page to hold or group the links neatly on your blog.

To do this all you need to do is start a new post. If you were making a review page for the post above you might title it "My Childhood" or "Chicken Recipes". You may wish to add a image to the top of the post and a little review to what the post contain. Below that type in each post name then hyperlink them to the post.



Example: (Note: don't click these links they are just examples)

My Childhood Chapter 01
My Childhood Chapter 02
My Childhood Chapter 03
My Childhood Chapter 04

Once your done with the Review Page you can then add it to the Link List gadget. Hopefully this will help you to make your blog search engine friendly and look professional.   I don't use this technique for this blog but I have other blogs I do use it on. To look at a example of another blog with this technique in use, you can go Matrix Anime