Create a Link Last Updated September 2025 Clicking links is the main interaction visitors have with websites. Professionals called Information Architects have built a career on navigation strategy. Making sure your visitors can easily find all the information they need is not always as easy as it seems. If you pause to give it some thought, follow these linking best practices and make sure your links have good context and appearance you will be on the right track. Use the Link Button in the Rich Text Editor and Link fields within the Content Type and Layout Builder forms to create hyperlinks. A link can go to: another page within the site, (the link fields and Link button in the Rich Text Editor will auto-fill as you type, so you can easily find internal content.) an external website URL address an email address telephone numbers can initiate a phone call on a smart phone an “anchor” or “jump to” link (flagged area in the same page) a PDF uploaded to the site On a related note, people with the Content Administrator User Role can add and update menu items. On this page: Basic Steps Linking Options Dialogue Box Internal Path or PDF URL E-mail Telephone Number Add Non-Visible Link Context Style the link so it looks like a button Open the link in a New Tab You can also Linking to Another Spot on the Page using an anchor or jump to link, like the “On this page” links above. Basic Steps In the below image, imagine you want the words “ancient Raven” to be a link. First, select the words which will become the link. Second, click the Link Button. This will bring up the Link Button Dialogue Box. Link Options Dialogue Box Link to Internal Path or PDF If linking to a page or file on your website, start typing the page title or file name you wish to link to. Drupal will search the page titles of existing pages on the site and files in the Media Library for ones that match. It will also show content that is not published in the drop-down of possible matches. Take care not to link a published page to unpublished page. Select the correct page and Drupal will build the link for you. (Before linking to a PDF please make sure it is optimized for the Web and you have followed all of the accessibility requirements.) URL If you need to link to a page outside of the current website, type the full Universal Resource Locator (URL) including https:// in the Link URL box. Toggle on the “External Link icon” in the Link Options Dialogue Box. If the page you are linking to requires that the visitor login you should toggle on the “Authentication required icon”. E-mail Type the email address in the Link URL box and select the email link below the box. This will insert the “mailto:” code so when a visitor clicks on the link, it will open your mail client to send an e-mail. Please make sure it is clear to your visitor that if they click the link it will open an email program on their device. Many people will prefer to copy the email address to open it in their preferred way. Telephone Number You can edit the source code or enter the code “tel:” before the number: Add Non-Visible Link Context You can use the Link Options Dialogue to add context to your links. You will want to do this if your link text is too vague or repeated on the page. Remember, duplicate link text (clickable text on a page using the same words), should never point to different URL Web addresses. Style the link so it looks like a button The linked text will can look like the style for the primary or secondary button on your website. Open the link in a New Tab Opening links in a new window or tab is usually not necessary and can cause issues for some visitors, especially those on mobile phones. There are some reasons why it could be useful, such as when the visitor will need to refer to the content in both tabs or windows. Consider this article from the Nielsen Norman Group.
