If you are new to blogging, then, it can turn out to be quite exciting for you – whether you do have proficiency in writing or not. However, once you enter the world of writing, it can turn out to be less exciting (though, only at the beginning, we assure you!!) and only then, you realize that it’s a completely new and unknown world – a world that you have not previously encountered.
To-do videos, online tutorials, courses – you will go through everything you can, but it will be only a matter of time, before you are bombarded with some words – puzzling and unfamiliar, they will be to you. That’s because blogging is not simply about writing – it is about knowing a lot of things that you have previously not given any thought to.
Programming, web design, general internet knowledge are a few of the terms that you will come across when blogging and they are only the tip of the iceberg – and for those newbies, who are completely new to blogging, it can be very overwhelming for them.
So, what are the terms that you are most likely to encounter as a newbie-blogger? If you have years of experience under your belt as a blogger, then, we are sure that you must have come across these terms on a regular basis.
In this article
SEO
Also known as ‘Search Engine Optimization’, SEO is a series of techniques that you do for your content in your blog so that people can see, read, or even interact with it. This will make your blog popular among the masses and which, in turn, will lead to better returns.
Know this that when you are adjusting the SEO of your blog’s content, you are basically adjusting the content so that search engines such as Google will prioritize your content better than others.
However, you should make it a point to remember that Google updates the SEO guidelines quite regularly.
Keywords
Apart from SEO, keywords are most commonly used – they are specific words that people use to search for specific content.
Hence, including them in your content strategically is a great idea to get your content seed by many, and if possible, consider using longer keywords (also known as key-phrases) that are made up of multiple short keywords.
Headings
Another important term to note when blogging is the ‘Heading’ – in short, it is mainly the sub-title of the content that is written.
Consider including either your keywords or key-phrases in the heading as a good SEO practice.
Front-end
It refers to the face or the front-side of the website, or in short – the very facade that you first see when you hit the link of a website or rather, it is the external appearance of a website, and that is what the audience will see when they hit the link of your website.
Back-end
It is the internal appearance of a website – the part where all the content is written, stored and even scheduled.
The back-end of a website is the internal mechanism where one can customize and tweak the settings of a website, based on one’s needs.
Web Hosting
Whatever service a website uses to make it available on the internet and viewable to the people, that is known as ‘Web hosting’.
The data that your website has – they are stored in a virtual place known as the server, and this server is communicated by the web hosting service to let the people access your website when they want to view your website.
Blogosphere
A blogging ecosystem – that’s what the term ‘Blogosphere’ means. It’s made by the bloggers and for the bloggers and is usually considered as a subset of blogs or websites.
Themes
Want to change the appearance of a website?
That’s what a ‘theme’ is for – if your blog is hosted on WordPress, then, there are millions of WordPress themes out there for you that lets you change how a website looks.
There are both free and premium ones – and what’s more, you can also create your own, if have the technical knowledge.
Platform
‘Platform’ is where you want your website to place or rather, the software that you use to build your website and manage your content.
It’s also known as CMS or ‘Content Management System’ and which is considered to be the back-end section of the platform.
HTML
Short for ‘HyperText Markup Language’, HTML is the code language that is used by the website and many other programs.
WordPress, too, has its own raw form (or, rather, an HTML view) that lets you see the content in raw form.
Spam
Now, this is something, that you will need to look out for and possibly, avoid ever showing in your blog.
Spam can take many forms such as comments, promotional messages, advertisements. Note that there are even users who take the form of spam (they are those whose only job is to spread hate around) and can damage your blog’s reputation.
It is advised to take the help of plugins to weed out the spam.
Meta
When running a blog, the term ‘Meta’ can mean various things – but usually, meta is the administrative information about something.
Take the example of ‘Meta tags’ – they are known to be the information that is used to describe a page in a blog that will let the search engines index the pages of your blog easily.
On the other hand, ‘Metadata’ is the authoritative information of digital content such as video files, audio files, and even photos.
SiteMap
There are certain sections in your blog that are deemed important – that’s what a ‘Sitemap’ is.
In short, a sitemap will show the audience what are the important sections in your blog and often appear in the form of small lists or catalogs that allows the people to find your content easier to find, navigate and click.
URL
Short for ‘Uniform Resource Locator’, ‘URL’ is simply the web address of the domain name of your website, usually ending in ‘.com’, ‘.net’ and such.
Categories & Tags
Many find it hard to differentiate the two, but this is what they are – ‘categories’ are a primary topic classification of your content, whereas ‘tags’ are short and specific short descriptions of your content, and if that’s confusing for you, you can term the ‘tags’ as keywords.
For easy reference, there should be fewer categories as compared to tags or else, it can get very confusing.
Fret not, these are merely terms – and some that you will often come across in your blogging journey, and as you become experienced, and soon, you will be throwing them in like a pro!
