Once you have created an Article page for your Joomla! 1.5 website, the next stage is to add a link to the navigation bar to allow visitors to see the page.

Here’s how to create a link on your navigation in Joomla!

In Joomla! you may have a number of different navigation bars on your website. You may have a main navigation bar and a footer navigation (usually for items such as Terms & Conditions or Privacy Policy etc). You may also have side navigation bars which only appear when members log in to your website. Each of these navigation menus works in the same way.

Here we describe how to add a link to a page on the main menu. The same principles apply to any other menu you may have… just pick the menu you want to add the link to.

NB: If you wish to add the same link to more than one menu bar, you will need to go through the same procedure for each menu.

From menus, choose “Main Menu”. This will bring up a list of all the existing navigation. You can see all by choosing “all” from the drop-down at the foot of the page, or search using the filter (as described above).

To add a new page to the navigation, click “New”

You are then given a list of options for your page:
All the options in the internal links the options are mainly self-explanatory.

Articles – is for article-based pages and it is this type of link we will deal with here.

You may wish to create any of the following other internal page links types:

Contacts – is to create another contact form

Web links is to create a links page.

You may find there are other options on your menu type selector depending on the modules you have installed. For example you may have the option for JcalPro (if you have a calendar on your site) or Polls or a Photo Slide option, or Chrono forms if you have a form module or Virtuemart if you have a shop. The principle for creating the navigation is very similar for each of these.

The other menu options are:

External Link – this is if you want to add a link to another website onto the navigation bar. (Unlikely!)

Separator is to make a top-level navigation link which does not go to a page, but is just the parent for the drop-downs (For example you may have a top-level separator called “Resources” which does not have a page of its own, but when a visitor hovers over this, you want drop-down links to appear which are to all the resource pages you have to offer.)

(Ignore Search and User and Wrapper)

Adding a link to an article-style page

To add a new article-based page click “Article” then “Article Layout”.

NB: You must have created the article first as you will be asked which article to link to

Find out how to create a new Article Page here.

Give the Menu Item a name. This will appear on the menu bar so keep it short.
Also an Alias for the url. (This will be used by search-engine-friendly urls if they are switched on.

Choose the Parent Item for the navigation link by clicking to highlight it.

If you choose TOP this will be added to the main navigation bar. If you want it to drop-down from an existing navigation button choose the appropriate page.

The next most important option to complete is in the Parameters (Basic) on the right-hand side. Here you select the article to link to.

Parameters (Component) contains a range of options that you will be familiar with from the article section. Here you can choose whether to the section the article has come from, the author’s name etc. These options will have been set up globally for your website, but if you wish to change the way they display on this particular article, you may do it here… otherwise leave as Use Global.

In Parameters (System)there is one very important section to complete and that is the Page Title. This is NOT the article title (that is set in the article). It is the wording which appears in the blue title bar at the top of the screen when you view the website page. This is important for search engines. See SEO Tip below.

Also choose NO for Show title, otherwise the wording which you choose for the blue title bar will also appear on the as a title on the article.

SAVE when you have completed this. The system will not allow you to save if you have not chosen an article.

Find out how to add a link to an article in a Blog Style Layout here.

SEO Tip

The blue title bar at the top of every screen when viewing a web page is a very important area for search-engine optimisation. Choose key words for the page to use in this title. Keep it to no more than 63 characters.