Add favorites to safari on ipad

I Have read the responses to "How to add favorites to to Safari on my iPad" in previous posts however, I must be missing something. To the left of the url is the icon to access favorites, the forward arrow and the back arrow. When I press/hold either arrow, it gives me the history of where I've been but no indication of how to add either the current webpage or any of the ones displayed. When I selected one of the urls that display, it just takes me to the page without adding/bookmarking. What am I doing wrong? I've never thought of myself as an idiot...until now.