Learning the Lingo

Blogging terminology is one of those things that I’ve picked up along the way but wish I would have known when I started blogging three years ago. Back then, I didn’t know the first thing about blogging and couldn’t tell you the difference between a widget and a URL.

I’ve come a long way since then and through the school of hard knocks, I’ve learned that the possibilities with blogging are endless. But, in order to take your blog wherever you want it to go, you have to start with learning some basics on the language of blogging. I’ve done all the legwork for you (either I’ve made the blogging mistakes or I’ve prevented them with the help of Google) and have compiled this handy list below. A lot of these terms may confuse you at first, but rest assured that many of them are topics we’ll expand on in future posts. We just want you to have an idea so if we reference things casually, you won’t feel clueless.

Pay attention because there may be a quiz at the end.

Pingback – An alert of the trackback (see below) system that tells you that someone has linked to a particular post on your blog. You wants lots and lots of these. The more people there are linking to your content, the more popular your blog will become.

Trackback – The system that alerts you that people are linking to a particular post on their blog using a pingback.

Post Slug – The portion of your post URL that represents the post name. For example, the post slug for this post is “learning-the-lingo.” Your slug and your title don’t have to be the same but we will talk more about that in future posts.

SEO – SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization which is a term we will be getting really familiar with here at Hollaback Health. It is a method of blogging, or any webpage development, to improve your ranking in search engines like Google or Bing.

Plug-ins – Add ons to your WordPress self-hosted blog that make your blog do cool things outside of your themes norm. Comment Luv is a popular one because it helps increase traffic for the commenter by adding a link to their last post under their comment. Anti-spam plug-ins are crucial for blocking spam comments.

Page Rank – The spot your blog, post or page has within a Google search using any given keyword search. For the keywords that are relevant to your blog, you want to be pretty close to the top if not #1.

Subscribe – This is what you want people to do on your blog, of course. By subscribing, one gets automatic updates each time your publish a post whether it is by email or in an atom or RSS reader. Many people, myself included, believe that subscriber count is more important than page views because your subscribers are your loyal readers and are more likely to promote your content.

RSS Feed - RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication and what that really means is a file being sent to RSS readers, such as Google Reader, each time you publish a post.

Atom Feed – Mostly used by blogger, the file sent to an atom reader each time you publish a post.

Feedburner – A popular feed service (feedburner.google.com) that helps you track your subscribers and how they are using your feed.

Permalink – The web address for any given post or page on your blog. It is the one that appears in the browser window and the one you use when sending other people links.

Hyper link – A link you create within a blog post or page that takes the reader to a different page on your blog or on the web.

No-Follow – A tag that you can add to the links you publish on your blog, such as your blogroll, that tells search engines to not use the link for SEO. Each time you post a link to something, it becomes more relevant and many believe that by allowing the search engines to “follow” your links out, you could potentially be harming your own rank. (Check out Are Your Links Causing Leaks? from Health Blog Helper for more details on this slightly complicated topic.) You can find plug-ins that will automatically do this for you.

Blogroll – A list of blogs that you recommend your readers check out. Just be sure to only add blogs to your blogroll that you really support and believe in. Blogrolls aren’t required so don’t feel guilty if you don’t have one.

Reciprocal Links – You may get emails from other bloggers or even companies asking your for a reciprocal link. This means they want you to add a link to your site in exchange for a link to your blog on theirs. Be really careful about accepting these offers and try to steer clear from offering them to others. Most people find it pretty obnoxious, especially when the two sites really have nothing in common. And while we’re at it, don’t tell people you have added them to your blogroll; many people feel that this is fishing for a reciprocal link and it won’t score you any points.

Anchor Text – The term you use to create a hyper link on your blog such as Hollaback Health. In this case “Hollaback Health” was the anchor text for a link to the Hollaback Health Blog. You should always use relevant anchor text instead of “click here” or “this post” to increase the SEO of said link. And as a side note, not using anchor text and pasting the whole permalink into your blog instead is hard to read and doesn’t do much for your credibility as a knowledgeable blogger.

Categories – An organizational system to use on your blog to indicate the type of content that can be found within each post. Think of it as a bookstore. You go into the bookstore and there are many sections of the store – books, magazines, DVD’s, CD’s. Categories should be broad and you should only use one category per post. They are helpful to your readers to point them in the right direction on your blog for the type of content they are interested in. It is always a good idea to have your category list displayed in your sidebar.

Tags - A more refined organization system for your blog posts. Let’s go back to the bookstore. Once you get the book section of the store, then you go to find the cookbooks, photography books, travel books, fitness books. You get the idea. The tags whittle your readers’ search down to exactly what they are looking for. From an SEO standpoint, some say that tags in your sidebars do more harm than good.

Sidebars- The panels that run down one or both sides of your blog that show data such as pictures, links, widgets on every page of your blog.

Widgets – These are fun blogging gadgets that add a little personality to your sidebars. You can add pictures, text, your blogroll; the list is pretty much endless, especially if you are self-hosted.

So there you have it, a quick and dirty dictionary to help you learn the lay of the land. In the coming months, we have plenty of techie posts planned that will incorporate these terms and help you take your blog to the next level.

What blogging terminology tripped you up when you started blogging? Have any terms we should add to the list?

Tagged as: blogging lingo, success, tech tutorials, technology