How to Create Creative Quick Links

Archimedes said, “the shortest path between two points is a straight line.” Obviously, he never used a website.

All too often, the path for visitors is less than straight – and that impacts everything from page bounce rates to the overall customer experience.

You only have a few seconds to grab a user’s attention and guide them to the next step in their journey. That’s why Quick Links are a great way to connect your visitors to the most frequented or highly trafficked pages on your website. They’re simple, intuitive, visual, and more clickable than your average link. 

By utilizing Bootstrap’s column structure capabilities, you can dynamically handle the styling of your Quick Links, making it easy to add new links in a well-organized grid that’s easy on the eyes.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how easy it is to create a Quick Links section using Bootstrap, HTML, and CSS.

Getting Started

Since we’ll be using Bootstrap, copy and paste the Bootstrap CDN links below in the head section of your HTML file:

<!-- Bootstrap CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.4.1/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Vkoo8x4CGsO3+Hhxv8T/Q5PaXtkKtu6ug5TOeNV6gBiFeWPGFN9MuhOf23Q9Ifjh" crossorigin="anonymous">
<!-- jQuery first, then Popper.js, then Bootstrap JS -->
<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.4.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-J6qa4849blE2+poT4WnyKhv5vZF5SrPo0iEjwBvKU7imGFAV0wwj1yYfoRSJoZ+n" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/popper.js@1.16.0/dist/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-Q6E9RHvbIyZFJoft+2mJbHaEWldlvI9IOYy5n3zV9zzTtmI3UksdQRVvoxMfooAo" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script src="https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.4.1/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-wfSDF2E50Y2D1uUdj0O3uMBJnjuUD4Ih7YwaYd1iqfktj0Uod8GCExl3Og8ifwB6" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

HTML

Below, we have a Bootstrap grid structure and 8 boxes for links. Each box is sized using Bootstrap’s column structure and have the classnames col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12 meaning in large desktop screens, there will be four boxes laid out horizontally, in regular desktop screens three, on smaller screens two and on mobile screens, each column will take up the entire width.

The total width is made up of 12-columns. You can adjust the number of columns by changing the numbers, for example, if you’d like to display only three columns on large screens, you can change the col-xl-3 value to col-xl-4 and have three equal-width columns across.

<section class="section mt-5 mb-5">
    <div class="container">
        <div class="row">
            <div class="col-12">
                <h1 class="text-center mb-5">More Information</h1>

                <div class="row">
                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Asteroid <br>packages</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Space excursions</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Five-star & <br>menu options</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Orbital entertainment</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">SpaceJet Flex <br>ticketing</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Shuttle <br>Locations</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">Transit Services</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>

                    <div class="col-xl-3 col-lg-4 col-sm-6 col-12">
                        <div class="box-information mx-0">
                            <a href="">JetPet program</a>
                        </div>
                        <!-- .box-information-->
                    </div>
                </div>
                <!-- .row-->
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</section>

CSS

Customize the background color, hover color, and text/link colors by modifying the hex values.

.section h1 {
    font-size: 37px;
}

.section .box-information {
    height: 115px;
    border: 1px solid #dbdbdb;
    margin-bottom: 30px;
}

.section .box-information a {
    font-size: 21px;
    line-height: 29px;
    font-weight: 600;
    padding-left: 20px;
    padding-right: 20px;
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    height: 100%;
    position: relative;
    color: #222;
    border-bottom: 4px solid #d60e96;
}

.section .box-information a:hover {
    transition: all, 0.4s, ease;
    background: linear-gradient(135deg, #ff9024 1%, #ff705e 44%, #ff5a85 55%, #ff2cd6 100%);
    color: #fff;
    text-decoration: none;
}


/* Media Queries */

@media (min-width: 768px) {
    .section h1 {
        margin-bottom: 8px;
    }
}

@media (min-width: 992px) {
    .section .box-information {
        margin: 0 5px 30px;
    }
}

@media (max-width: 767.98px) {
    .section .box-information {
        height: 85px;
        margin-bottom: 15px;
    }
}

And there it is! Check out the JSFiddle below to see how the quick links look before committing to its use.

Thank you for reading, and let’s connect!

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