Blogging for Beginners: Terms & Concepts
First, we covered getting yourself a blog. This week, let’s talk vocabulary.
This is a starter list, so chime in if you have questions or you’re unsure about something bloggy.
Blog
Everyone says this is short for weblog. In five-plus years of blogging, though, I have never seen anyone who actually blogs refer to their site as a weblog. It’s like putting the “-” in e-mail (as opposed to writing it “email” without the hyphen). Your blog is where you write. It’s updated through RSS, so it’s changing. A blog is a kind of website. A website is not always a blog.
A blog is like a newspaper–changing frequently. A website that’s not a blog, on the other hand, is like a book, with content that’s not changing. Though you probably update your website, it doesn’t require a steady flow of new material day after day.
On a blog, you keep a frequently updated series of entries, providing news, commentary, or other content.
–Related terms:
- Blogosphere
The world of blogging. Is it a real word? Nah, probably not. Except that those of us who are completely entrenched in it don’t know that, so let us live in our little world of made-up words, wouldja? 🙂 - Blog (the verb)
The act of writing for your blog, as in “Sorry, can’t help you right now, I’m blogging!”
Post
An entry on a blog. What you are reading right now is a post.
–Related terms:
-
Category or TagYou have the opportunity to categorize your posts, depending on what kind of blogging software you use. I use WordPress on my personal site, so there’s a chance to use both categories and tags. This allows you to flag key words and specific content and organize yourself. For example, here on the CWG blog, I often tag my posts blogging. We have other bloggers who write about fiction.
- Comments
This is where the conversation takes place on blogs. Comments are the responses other people (or even the author) leave on a post.
Page
This is an unchanging portion of your blog. It’s a webpage, essentially, and it’s different from your blog feed because you don’t type a post to change it. For example, here on the CWG blog, the Blog Schedule is a page. And here I’m talking about a page within a blog, which is different than a webpage. (Confused yet? Sorry!)
–Information that belongs in a post versus on a page:
Blog posts highlight information that’s not going to be around forever. Eventually, it will be in archives (though you could link to it later, repost it, etc.). Pages, on the other hand, would contain information you want people to find and that doesn’t need to change. On my website, for example, I have a page for my speaking topics, which changes every so often but is mostly static.
Sidebar
Many blog designs have areas on the side. Those areas are called sidebars.
–Related term:
- Blogroll
A listing of links to other blogs, often found in a sidebar or on its own page within a blog or website.
Link
This is an example of a link. See how it’s a different color and when you hover your mouse over it you can click? That’s a link. It’s text or an image that takes you to another webpage or file.
–Related terms:
- Backlink
This is when someone links back to your blog or a post on your site. - Permalink
Some posts have long and unwieldy links, or you’ll notice that the URL has extra junk at the end, because you were referred by somewhere else. A permalink is the permanent link for a post, one that does not change and always leads to that post.
Feed
This is what makes it possible for your blog posts to be delivered to people via email or different reader programs (i.e. Google Reader). There are a variety of feed types, such as RSS, Atom, or RDF.
Those who read your blog from a feed reader (like me!) have a different experience of your blog than those who actually visit your website. For one thing, they don’t see anything other than your post–no background, no fancy sidebars, no pretty header. Just the post. It makes it easier to take in a lot of information from blogs in one place.
If you want to know how it is for your readers, I suggest signing up for a feed reader (I like Google Reader) and subscribing to a few blogs. More details at this article, Feed 101.
—Related term:
- RSS
Stands for “rich site syndication” and is one type of magic that makes your blog content appear in my feed reader (I use Google Reader, but there are lots of others). RSS allows web content that’s regularly updated to be delivered to people via different methods (as opposed to them having to always check back with the actual website). If you want to learn more, here’s a great explanation of what RSS is (and it’s written in English, too).
Stats
Statistics, including how many people are viewing your site, what posts are most popular, and what color you should wear. There are a variety of different programs and add-ons for this, and we’ll cover stats in more depth in a future post in this series.
—Related term:
- SEO
Search engine optimization, or “how you get people to find you,” although that makes it sound more important than it is. Wait, it IS important. But it can also be distracting. Just like stats.
Further Reading:
- 5 Terms Every Blogger Should Know
- 43 Essential Terms to Know
- 5 Basic SEO Tips and Terms
- 10 Adsense Terms and Definitions (note: if you don’t have Google Adsense, this doesn’t apply to you)
Have I left anything out? What term or concept has you scratching your head and wondering? Ask away in the comments!
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When Sarah Reinhard isn’t blogging at SnoringScholar.com, she can usually be found on Twitter and Facebook. She’s in denial about the amount of reading time she doesn’t have right now and has authored a number of titles, including her latest, Welcome Baby Jesus: Advent and Christmas Reflections for Families.
Latest posts by Sarah Reinhard (see all)
- Seal of Approval 3rd Quarter 2013 Notice - June 27, 2013
- A closer look at blogging stats and how to improve them - May 8, 2013
- The simple steps to getting a blog - April 24, 2013
I have noticed that some of my friends on facebook send me a "message" (which usually comes also as email) every time they share a link or write on their wall. That would be a good way to let all friends on facebook know that I'm posting on my blog. Would you be so kind to explain how they do that? Step by step, because I'm so stupid when it comes to computers?
Thank you so much, and happy Thanksgiving!
Let me be more precise. It's obvious that these people send the message (and the email) to a large number of friends at the same time. Do you know how to do that?
Thanks again!
Antonella, I think that might be a setting you have set up in Facebook itself, though I am, admittedly, not an expert in things Facebook-related. (Facebook, admittedly, is something I tolerate more than enjoy.)
In the upper right corner, where your name and photo appear in Facebook, there's a little arrow, and if you click it, you have a menu that comes up with "Account Settings" as a choice.
After you click that, you'll see, on the left, "Notifications" in the choices listed.
There are a number of different options available to you on that screen, so take a look and try different things out. I'm guessing you have yourself set up to receive all types of notifications.
I agree, though, that having your blog post to Facebook *IS* a good idea, and I will be covering some ways to do that in a future post. 🙂
I did what you said and clicked on a few things, hoping that the right one would be LINKS. I'm going to try to befriend you on Facebook and then I'll post the link to my blog, so you'll be able to tell me if you received it as a notification. Is that OK?