How to Open a Link in a New Tab (And Why)
There’s a variety of SEO practices you can use to get noticed by both the audience and the search engines – from picking an SEO-friendly WordPress theme to SEO basics like optimizing your content and link building.
As far as link building efforts go, external linking is something you should pay special attention to. Contrary to popular belief, linking to relevant external websites may be extremely beneficial for your website’s SEO. Not only can backlinks make you appear more trustworthy because they help provide valuable material to your readers, they can also contribute to those websites returning the favor and linking back to your website as well. This is especially important since backlinks fall among the top Google Ranking Factors.
However, the problem may arise when users click on an external link on your website. If you don’t make sure that they can open such a link in a new tab or window, your visitors will be led elsewhere and may not ever come back to your own website again. And that’s something you definitely want to prevent from happening. In the same way, there may be some users who would prefer to open multiple internal links from your own site at once, which means that it would be easier to have them all displayed in different tabs for better UX.
For this reason, we’ve decided to talk about the benefits of opening links in a new tab or window, as well as all the different methods you can use to apply this method to your WordPress site.
Also, before we begin, we should note that when we say “new window”, we are actually using the word as sort of a synonym for “new browser tab”. This may not be correct usage, but it has certainly become a common practice, for a simple reason – people generally don’t want links to open in a new window. While there still may be some users who would prefer to open links in an entirely new browser window (as in, creating an entirely new browser session), this isn’t considered a good UX practice. That’s why opening links in a new window in this context simply means opening them in a new location, i.e. the one that is separate from your web page. If you prefer to open your links in an entirely separate browser window, you can always right-click on the link in question and select the option to open it in a new window from within your browser.
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External links represent hyperlinks that belong to any domain that isn’t yours. So, if you add external links on your WordPress site, your visitors will be led to other websites when they click on them.
If these links open in the same tab as your webpage, aside from the risk of visitors having to click the back button repeatedly to return to your page (a so-called “back-button fatigue”), there is also the possibility of them forgetting about your site entirely and not coming back to it ever again. To avoid this, many marketing and SEO experts suggest linking to new tabs instead. This is a good practice because it can prevent your users from leaving your website, in turn lowering the bounce rate on your page and avoiding any negative effects on your page rankings.
Having external links that open in a new window or tab is not only good for user experience and your website’s SEO, but it also ensures that users don’t lose the page they were on, aka the page of your website. This way, users will more likely go back to finishing the article they were reading on your website, which also has the potential to bring you more page views and enhance user engagement. It’s simple – the more users stay on your site, the more likely they will want to check out your other content, and eventually subscribe to a newsletter, purchase your product, or try out your services.
In case the external links you put up on your website are a good reference material that should be combined with the content on your web page, then opening these links in a new tab will be even more convenient for your visitors. Once they check out the references provided in the external links, they can simply return to the original article located in another tab and continue reading without disrupting their browsing experience too much.
The same goes for your internal links, i.e. the hyperlinks that point to pages of your website. If you prefer to set these types of links to open in a new tab, you can improve the user experience of your visitors by a long mile. This arrangement will allow them to explore your website’s content in a more practical manner, allowing them to switch from one page to another more easily and ensuring that they don’t forget to return to any of your pages or posts they were originally interested in.
Last but not least, by getting your links to open in a new tab, you can prevent your website from being “overworked”. If the users just go back to the tab containing your page, naturally, the page won’t have to load again, in turn helping you save a lot of your website’s resources.
Now that we mentioned all the potential benefits of opening links in a new tab, we will talk about all the different ways in which you can do this in WordPress.
If you are using Gutenberg, you’ll be happy to hear that the Gutenberg editor has an integrated option that can be easily set so that you can open links in a new tab.
Once you’re in the page or post edit screen, select the text you wish to use for your link and click the Link button:
This will make a new popup box appear. Simply paste or enter the link in this box and make sure to click on the toggle that will allow you to open the link in the new tab.
Press enter and your link will be all set. You should go ahead and preview it to make sure your link is set properly.
If you still prefer to use the Classic editor when creating pages and posts on your WordPress site, head to your page/post edit, select the text you want to link, and hit the add link button.
Once the popup appears where you can add your link, you should click on the gear icon next to the link box. This will trigger the window that contains some advanced options.
Here you should check the option that says “Open link in a new tab” and hit the Update button.
After saving your page or post, you can go ahead and preview it to check if your link is working properly.
Alternatively, you can also open a link in a new tab using the Text tab in the Classic editor.
Once there, select the text you want to link and click the link button.
This will open a popup where you can add your link and check the option called “Open link in a new tab”.
After hitting the Add Link button, the popup will disappear, and you will see the HTML code for your link in the Text editor.
Don’t forget to save your changes when you’re done.
If you want to use an HTML code to add a link to your WordPress site, you can do so in the above-mentioned Text mode for the Classic editor, in the Code editor for Gutenberg, or directly in the theme template file (in Appearance >> Theme Editor).
You can do this by adding the following code (which will let your browsers know they should open the link in a new tab):
<a href="your URL goes here" target="_blank" rel="noopener">your link text</a>
You need to replace the “your URL goes here” with your link URL, and you can insert the link text instead of “your link text”.
No matter if you’re using a standard navigation menu in WordPress or a mega menu, there is an easy way to open any of your menu links in a new tab.
Head to Appearance >> Menus and select a menu you want to edit.
Then, in Screen Options (which you will find in the upper right corner of your screen), mark the checkbox named “Link Target”.
Now you can choose specific menu items you wish to open in a new tab by clicking on them and checking the option named “Open link in a new tab”. Make sure to hit the Save Menu button once you’re done.
There is a way to get all your links to open in a new tab automatically, and it can be done by using a plugin. This is a great solution if you own a multi-author blog, or you simply can’t be bothered to set new links to open in a new tab every time you add them to a new page or post.
To do this, you need to install a WordPress plugin called External Links in a New Window and then activate it.
Luckily, this is where your setup ends, as the plugin works on the principle of opening all your links in a new window automatically using JavaScript. In other words, you don’t have to configure anything else in order to get it to work, aside from installing and activating it. However, we should note that your links won’t open in a new window anymore once you deactivate and/or uninstall the plugin.
Finally, you should know that this plugin allows you to automatically open external links only, as it is evident from the plugin’s name.
Conclusion
Opening a link in a new tab or window is a good practice that can bring multiple benefits to your website, including better SEO rankings and user experience, as well as a generally lower bounce rate. No matter if you decide to do it manually, or end up installing a plugin to automate the process, getting links to open in a new tab is quite easy to do and should become a part of your linking routine. We suggest following the instructions we presented above for the best possible results.
