[intro]In this guide, you can learn all about anchor text, and how to add this to the Webpages on your EKM online shop to aid navigation for your customers.[/intro]

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What is anchor text?

It’s text on a page that has been hyperlinked to another place, such as a separate page. Examples of this can be seen all over the Support Centre, in the grey elements with the headline ‘In this article…’. By clicking the anchor text within this element, you are automatically redirected to the relevant headline within the Guide itself. Anchor text is used to break the Guides up into chunks, so readers can quickly jump to the part of the article they want to read the most:

Anchor text used to be used a lot during the early days of the Internet, where websites and online shops would commonly have very long pages of text. If you have any Webpages on your EKM online shop that are particularly long - containing a lot of text and/or images, then using anchor text is a good way of aiding navigation, by allowing your visitors to jump down the page to the information that they’re looking for. 

When to use anchor text

If you have a Webpage on your EKM online shop that contains a lot of text - enough to warrant your customer scrolling down two or three times to consume it all - then anchor text will make this easier for them to navigate. Anchor text is commonly used on Webpages for Delivery and Returns information, but can also be used on Webpages to explain the benefits of signing up for Email Newsletters, or for Customer Accounts and Loyalty Points, for example. 

How to use anchor text

1. To begin you need to create a Webpage in the usual manner and add your text to the Webpage. Make sure that you have added headings within the text by using the drop-down menu within the Edit Webpage window:

2. In my example, I’ve set all of my headers to use Heading 2 sized text. When you have added your headers throughout the body of your text, your next step is to list the headers at the top of the page. This will be your summary:

3. Now you need to add the code to link the different headers to your summary. To do this you need to click the Source button:

4. You then need to copy this code:

<a name="replacethistext"></a>

5. Looking at the source code of your Webpage, press the CTRL and F keys on your keyboard to bring up a search bar. Type ‘h2’ into it and press the Enter key to highlight all instances of your H2 headers:

[remember]In my example, I’ve used Heading 2, which is why I’m using ‘h2’ in my search. If you have used Heading 3, search for ‘h3’ and so on, according to the size of headers you’ve used. [/remember]

6. Now you need to paste the code before the first h2 tag, like this:

7. Replace the ‘replacethistext’ part of the anchor code with the words included in your heading, with no spaces or punctuation, like this:

8. Repeat this process for the rest of your headers. When you have completed the last one, click the Source button again:

9. Your next step is to link the headers to the summary at the top of the page. Highlight one of the headers, and then click the Link button:

10. In the Link window that appears, add the link to the header with a hashtag to begin, like this:

11. Your next step is to open a new browser tab and open the Webpage that you’re editing on your EKM online shop. Copy the URL of this Webpage:

12. Return to the tab where you are editing this Webpage, and paste the URL of the Webpage before the tag, so it looks something like this:

13. Now you need to click the green Ok button:

14. Repeat this process for the rest of your headers. When you have completed linking your headers to your summary, click the Save & Close button on the bottom right-hand side of the Edit Webpage window:

Now your visitors can click the summary of your Webpage to be redirected to the relevant part of the text, without having to scroll down, thus improving your user experience.

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[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in EKM Community. If you need some inspiration for your EKM online shop, listen to our podcast on iTunes and Spotify.[/contact]