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Blogger Lingo: Understanding Blogging Terms and What they Mean

I have decided to start a new series called ~~So You’re a New Blogger?~~ ~~The New Blogger Series~~ Better Your Blog (renamed in 2015) in order to help new bloggers learn the ropes and get caught up with some of us more experienced bloggers. Not a new blogger and found this useful? Great! I also hope it can help experienced bloggers increase their knowledge as well. Today’s lesson is all about that blogger lingo-you know, the terms experienced bloggers throw around, and you may not know what it means yet. Don’t worry, I’ve got you boo-here it is.

Important Blogger Lingo

SEO: Stands for Search Engine Optimization and is very important if you want your site to be ranked highly, attract more readers, and work cohesitvely with search engines like Google. In today’s world you can’t afford to not pay attention to SEO.

Analytics: The tracking of things like page views, visitors, keywords, and SEO stuff. Very useful if you want to know more about your audience and how many views your site is getting on average. I use Google Analytics.

Blogging Platforms

Blogger: Blogger is the blogging platform owned and hosted by Google. It’s so easy to use, quick to set up, and a great place for beginners-however, it’s important to realize when using Blogger that you don’t own any of the data you post to it. Technically, google takes ownership of it.

WordPress.com: The free WordPress blogging platform. It’s very much like Blogger, only more limited and also you are not allowed to take sponsorships or receive money for your blog or blog posts. I’d stay away from this one if you ever plan to monetize your blog.

WordPress.org: Where you put your self-hosted wordpress.

Hosted WordPress: This is where you use WordPress as your blogging platform, but you own your own hosting. Usually, it is managed WordPress hosting through your web provider. I use GoDaddy, but have heard good things about Host Gator also.

eCommerce: When you set up your website to sell products online.

Readership and Followers

GFC: Stands for Google Friend Connect and is a slightly-outdated way of measuring followers and following blogs. While it still runs and works for most google blogs, it has been mostly dropped by google in favor of Google+.

Note: There are all sorts of other kinds of ways to follow including: by email, BlogLovin’, HelloCotton, Linky Followers, RSS (definition below), etc.

RSS: RSS stands for Really Symple Syndication. You can subscribe to a blog via an RSS feed and then use it in a reader. I use ~~Google Reader~~ Feedly (Google Reader died a few years back) with mine, but there are a lot of them out there. For example, Bloglovin’ actually counts as an RSS reader.

Follow By Email: You can set up a widget on your sidebar that allows them to follow you by email. As long as they put in their email and verify they want to follow that way your posts will be emailed to them each time you post.

Advertising Terms

Monetizing Your Blog: This is the act of making profit off of your blog.

Sponsoring: A form of advertising. When you sponsor a blogger you will usually pay a set amount (most bloggers who accept sponsoring have a sponsor/advertise page that lists these prices) and you get to have your button/ad on their blog for a set amount of time. A lot of bloggers offer other perks with the advertising, such as them writing about you on their blog or in social media, the option for you to participate in a giveaway, etc.

Note: Check out my Advertise page for an example of how I have it set up and what I offer.

Ad Spot: An Ad spot is the space you purchase for your ad/button to be. Predetermined size by the blogger you’re sponsoring. Usually the ad spots are shown on the sidebar of the blog.

In Post Feature: This type of ad spot is a feature ad that is included in every post. Usually bloggers put it at the bottom of their posts.

Passionfruit Ads: A very popular and easy way to manage your sponsorship for a small fee.

Affiliates: If a blogger partners with a brand or company they become an affiliate. This usually means they blog or mention that product they earn money for referring customers (at no extra cost to the customer) and often have exclusive discounts.

Button/Ad Swapping: This is where other bloggers put your blog’s button on their blog in return for you putting their button on yours in an effort to promote each other.

Google AdSense: This is an advertisement run through Google, where you are paid based on the number of unique click throughs.

Types of Posts

Feature Posts: These are posts that are specifically geared towards showing off another blogger, shop, or product. These usually come with certain sponsorship options, or just when someone wants to share you with their readers.

Sponsored Posts: A post the blogger is paid to write.

Reviews: When a company or shop sends you product to test in return for you to write a post about your experience using that product.

Guest Post: A post someone else writes for your site, or that you write for their site.

Round-Up Posts: A post that usually includes multiple links to things. Either a round up of their favorite posts during the week, of giveaways they have, etc.

Design Terminology

Blog Buttons: Unique buttons/images to identify your blog. Usually you can post one with the code on your blog, so other bloggers can grab your button and put it on their blogs in order to promote You can also use these for ads too.

Blog Headers: These are basically the image/words that people first see when visiting your blog. Most often along the top of the page, but recently I moved mine over to the right for a different look. These should show a little of what your blog is like, list the title of your blog, and can include words or other images that relate.

Social Media Icons: are the little images that link to your social media sites from your blog.

Sidebar: The sidebar is the area on the side of your blog where you can put links, images, ads, etc.

Blog Intro Graphic: A graphic that usually includes a photo of the blogger, a welcome message, and a brief paragraph about the blogger so you can see who the writer is.

Tabs/Pages: These are the links along the top of the page (or on the side in some cases) that directs you to other places on the blog such as About, Contact, etc.

HTML: Stands for Hypertext Markup Language, and is a popular (all though older) internet coding and tagging language. For more information, check out my post Basic HTML for Bloggers, and learn what codes can help you in your everyday blogging.

CSS: Stands for Cascading Style Sheet, and is a popular design and internet coding language. A lot of the better blog design is done in CSS now.

Networking and Social Media

Social Media Sites: These are websites where you share with others. Your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. are all good examples of a Social Media site.

Social Media Shout-Outs: A lot of bloggers with sponsoring options will offer Social Media Shout-Outs. This means that they will mention you on their social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Linky Parties: These are often theme-based (but not always) blogging events where a blogger (or multiple bloggers) hosts a link-up with it. They post the theme (or idea/content/etc.) and along with that host a linky where you can in turn write a post that fits that theme and then add your blog link to the party on their blog. There is then a list of other blog posts that fit the Linky Party theme, and you can go visit the other posts and hopefully the other bloggers will come visit yours as well.

Note: These are GREAT for making new blog friends and gaining readership, especially if you fully participate and leave meaningful comments on the other bloggers posts-they’ll usually come back and check yours out as well! I host three of these!

Blog Directory: A place where you can list your blog to get more eyes on it, as well as search for other blogs to read.

Blogging Events

Swaps: Blog swaps are fun and exciting ways to get to know other bloggers through snail mail. Often these are also theme-based and hosted by bloggers. You get matched up with a partner, get to know your partner, and send them a package (associated with whatever theme) and they send one too!

Note: I also co-run a swap blog, so you can see more examples and maybe participate in one by visiting Chaotic Goddess Swaps!

Giveaways: Pretty self-explanitory-you can enter to win things in these!

Group Giveaways: A giveaway where there are multiple contributors to the prize. Usually a group of bloggers who have each donated something.

Blogging Conventions: These are gatherings that are physically held somewhere where bloggers can come together and meet in person. Sometimes travel is necessary to attend, and most of the time you have to buy tickets.

Note: Popular blogging conventions include Alt Summit, Bloggy Bootcamp, BlogHer, and more.

Have a term you didn’t see here that you want defined?

Leave me a comment and I will not only add it, but answer your question as well!

*Special shout out to Kelsey at Stories of Kel for suggesting the Blogger Lingo topic!*

The Better Your Blog Series is a series of posts written by myself, Angie of My So-Called Chaos, from my own personal experience as a long-time blogger, small-business owner, and as someone who’s worked with technology and customer service for many many years. They are written with the intent of sharing the knowledge I’ve acquired through years of practice and education (both self-taught and school-taught) with others in the blogging community.

In this collection of posts you’ll not only find tips for maintaining your blog, but also for anything that goes along with being a blogger and/or small business owner-like design tips and tutorials, social media, tools, and more.

The posts in this series are constantly being updated to make sure they stay current, and the series is constantly being added to. Please contact me if there’s something you’d like to learn.

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