Linkto Documentation

Linkto Documentation

If you haven’t already, register a username for yourself so you can discuss this topic in our Site Tools forum.

Greetings! And thank you for downloading “Linkto,” a super simple program designed to help you gather and create the kinds of content ideas your visitors will love. Linkto is the executable version of our “Link To Your Own Content For Content Ideas” article. If you haven’t read it yet, click the link. It’ll paint a crystal clear picture of why, as a content creator, you’re going to want this thing.

What It Is

Let’s say you recently uploaded an article about… hmm… I dunno… pancakes. And let’s say it’s time to create some more pancake-related content, only now, you’re sick to death of pancakes, your mind is drawing a blank, and if you see as much as a teaspoon of syrup, you’re going to scream “Bloody Molasses!” (Hey, as a content creator, I’ve been there.) Linkto makes coming up with fresh, new content ideas easy. All you need is a page of your own existing content, Linkto, and your brain.

How To Use It

Here’s what to do.

1. Load up a webpage of previously written content. I know you don’t want to see it again, but I promise, there’s some content-gold in there.
2. Fire up Linkto, a tiny 828KB Windows program, and then click the webpage’s URL in your browser’s address bar. Make sure the URL is highlighted, and then press CTRL + G. (You’ll see why later).
3. Read through your article and look for just one thing that would make a great link to something else… to anything else… – if only that ‘else’ actually existed. Highlight it and press CTRL + G again. Linkto will display this:
   

   At the top of that graphic, you’ll see “Link,” the word or word phrase that you highlighted, and then “to:”right under the title bar. In this example, I loaded up a webpage and then highlighted the words, “existing content.” Linkto grabbed those words and inserted them into the program to read, “Link ‘existing content’ to:”.

   That doesn’t mean much by itself. In fact, it sounds like the start of something. So let’s finish it.

   If you look at the series of available options, you’ll see that Linkto wants you to continue the idea started at the top of the screen.  According to Linkto, you can apparently:

   “Link ‘existing content’ to: an article about…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: an audio file about…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: a chart of…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: an image of…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: a software program about…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: a survey about…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: a video of…”
   “Link ‘existing content’ to: something else about…”

4. Click one of those options so you can (1) complete the thought started at the top of the program, and (2) have a bona fide reason to create new content (even when you thought it couldn’t be done).
5. Type something like “my website” in the textbox below the options. This completes your thought. It has an action, a subject, and a prepositional phrase. Your 3^rdgrade teacher would be so proud, and when you click that OK button, or press the Enter key, the thought or idea you just made is saved to a log file appropriately named, “content ideas.log.”

   When you open that log file with the CTRL + O command, or when you select it from the program’s menu, you’ll see something like this:

   http://www.justoutsourcing.com/wp/link-to-your-own-content-for-content-ideas/ Link ‘existing content’ to: an image of my website.

   The first line tells you where the word phrase ‘existing content’ came from, which is super important — because if it didn’t, and if you had a bunch of word or word phrases saved to this log, you wouldn’t know where in the world they came from. You know what the second line tells you.

6. Continue this process for each and every item you find that would make a great link to something else… to anythingelse… – if only that ‘else’ actually existed. Look for nouns and/or noun phrases. Then look for verbs and/or verb phrases. Look for anything that people would search for if they were at Google instead of your website or blog, and hit it with Linkto.

   When you’re done, you’re going to have the most awesome-est content generating to-do list ever. What you do with the items on that list, of course, is up to you. I suggest that you develop the items that you want to “link to,” and then link to it! Don’t want to do it yourself? Then outsource it!

A Couple of Notes

If you…

• Leave the textbox blank and press OK anyway, Linkto will write “Link ‘your selection’ to something” to your log. Try it and see for yourself.
• Select an option, but don’t enter anything in the textbox before pressing OK, Linkto will write “Link ‘your selection’ to a relevant (whichever option you checked).” to your log.
• Enter something into the textbox, but don’t select an option, Linkto will place “Link ‘your selection’ to (whatever you typed into the textbox).” into your log.
• Type a web address into the textbox, Linkto will automatically create a hyperlink to the highlighted words, and write that hyperlink into your log.
• Change anything in the log from within Linkto, it will automatically save your changes.

Notes

Linkto uses extensive use of the clipboard. Don’t run this program when you have to use the clipboard for anything else.

Linkto is absolutely free. You may share it however you feel inclined to, as long as it’s accompanied by this document. Download a fresh copy at http://www.justoutsourcing.com/linkto.zip.