3) you type in the complete URL and then before you click "OK" look for a button that says "target"

4) click the "target" button and then click "new window" or "blank"

Now when someone clicks a link from your site, the link will open up in a new window. When they finish looking at that site, they'll click "close" and be taken back to your site. That way you don't lose visitors.

If the blogging platform you use doesn't provide you with the "target" button, you can add the html code target="_blank"

So if you have a link that looks like this:

href="http://www.interestingsite.com/relevantarticle.htm">

you just add the html code right before the >

So it ends up like this (I've added the bold for emphasis; you don't need to do that)

href="http://www.interestingsite.com/relevantarticle.htm"target="_blank" >

Note added June 26, 2007: Seems my instructions on how to open a link in a new window stirred up quite a bit of controversy with Problogger readers. Apparently some people find it annoying when websites are set up to open links in new window. There's strong opinions on both sides of the issue. For now, I'll continue my practice of opening links in a new window (tab) but I will take the opposing opinions under consideration.