Related links are a great way to add value to your story. They give readers access to primary documents, external resources and additional information. Unlike most Post assets, related links are actually not created in your Post, but in the "Links" section of WordPress and then assigned to your Post. While this requires that you leave your Post, it has a few huge advantages, including reusable lists of links and easy access to links as reporting resources.
Related Links in an Article
Related links appear inline, or in the sidebar of a story.
Add a New Link Category
A new link category is required for each new list of links. If multiple articles will use the same set of links (like a multi-part series link to each article) then they will use the same category.
Category Name
Link category names appear in the admin and in special cases on the Web site. GIve your category a unique, short and descriptive name.
Category Slug
Categories slug are like our general naming slugs for videos. They are always YYYYMMDD_shortslug. They short slug should relate to the date and headline of the primary / first story the link list appears in.
Add a Link
Links are added individually and then associated with one or multiple link categories.
Link Name
The Link Name is the text that will be turned into the hyperlink in your list. In general, this should be short and descriptive. For example, "Concord City Council" is better than "Click here for the Concord City Council website."
Web Address
This is the URL of the link, including the beginning http:// or https://. Any errors here will produce a broken link in your link list.
Description
If populated, the Description field is used as the hover text for a link. This can be VERY useful in clarifying link text.
Categories
Categories are the way to relate this link to one or more predefined categories, like the one we just created.
Rating
Rating is the way we order our list. 1 is the highest order, 9 is the lowest.
Review Links
If we go "Edit Links," we’ll see all the links we’ve created and their Categories. We’ll also see their rankings.
Get Link Category ID for the Post
In order to associate our links to our Post, we need to know the Link Category ID. Anywhere we see the Category Name, like in the "Edit Links" screen in the last step, we can hover over the name and it’ll appear at the end of the URL in the bottom status bar of the browser. In this case, the ID is "2155."
Alternate Ways of Getting the Category ID
If you don’t have your status bar enabled, you can click on the Category Name link and get the URL at the top of the next page.
Add Your Links to Your Post
Back in your Post, make a new Custom Field called "related_links." For the value put the link category ID and title you want to use in this format: id|title. In this example I have "2155|Avett Brothers Sites."
Update Your Post
Update your Post and preview it. You should now see your links ordered by Rating and with the title you gave them in the last step.