The Benefits of Opening External Links in a New Tab
Using a plugin to open all external links in a new tab in WordPress offers several benefits that enhance user experience and more. Here’s why it’s useful:
- Maintains Site Engagement: Opening external links in a new tab or window keeps your website open, allowing users to return easily without losing their place. This is particularly beneficial when you have lengthy content or important resources that you don’t want users to lose track of.
- Improves User Convenience: Users will no longer need to right-click on their mouse when opening new tabs, which is especially helpful for those who are less tech-savvy or browsing on mobile devices where navigation can be more cumbersome.
- Lowers Exit Rate: With external links opening in a new tab, users are less likely to exit your site completely. This can contribute to improved session duration metrics, which are positive signals for search engine optimization.
- Simplifies User Tracking: Keeping users on your site in the original tab allows for more accurate tracking of user behavior and engagement metrics. This data is crucial for understanding user interactions and optimizing content strategies.
- Ease of Use for You and Your Team: Plugins automate the process of setting external links to open in new tabs, saving you from manually editing each link. This will save you an incredible amount of time, especially if your site has extensive content.
- Consistent Application: Ensures that all external links follow the same behavior across your WordPress website, providing a uniform experience for all users.
- Meets User Expectations: Some website visitors expect external links to open in new tabs. Meeting these expectations can enhance the accessibility of your site by aligning with common browsing habits.
- Provides a Polished User Experience: Providing a controlled and user-friendly navigation experience helps project a professional and well-managed site, which can enhance your credibility and user trust.
By leveraging a plugin to handle external links, you can streamline the process, maintain a high-quality user experience, and optimize your site’s performance and metrics.
How to Automatically Open All External Links in a New Tab
Using the External Links in New Window/New Tab plugin, every link will automatically open up in a new tab. You will no longer have to do this manually when working on any area of your website including posts, pages, and so on.
- To install the plugin, hover over Plugins in the left-hand menu within your WordPress account and click on Add New Plugin.
- In the top right search field, type in the word “external”. Find the External Links in New Window / New Tab plugin and click on the Install Now button as seen below. Once it’s done installing, click Activate to activate the plugin.
Now that the plugin is active, you’re done! Every external link found within your WordPress website will automatically open in a new tab. This includes both past and future links – no need to go back and update any links you’ve setup in the past.
External Links Plugin Settings
While you could call it quits after installing and activating the WordPress plugin, there are two sections within the Settings that you can modify if needed:
JS Regular Expression (Force Links): Force links to open in a new window if they match a specific JS regular expression.
JS Regular Expression (Ignore Links): Alternatively, you can ignore links by entering a JS regular expression within the plugins’ Settings area.
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