In the world of blogging (and beyond), there are many different words, phrases and abbreviations that you will need to know. To make this task much easier, we’ve created the ultimate “Blogging Dictionary“, which currently has hundreds of words bloggers, site owners and online marketers use on a daily basis.
Blogging Dictionary
This blogging dictionary is always being updated with the latest terms and lingo as the industry continues to develop and move forward.
A
Above the Fold: This term refers to the top part of a newspaper or a website that is the first thing seen by the viewer.
A/B Testing: This is the testing process of advertisement copy, sales page or content that creates an alternate version to see which one gets the most response.
Advertorial: Similar to a conventional ad, but written like a standard post.
Affiliate: A term used for a person engaged in affiliate marketing
Affiliate Marketing: A popular way for a blogger to monetize their websites. This uses a special link to another company which when clicked and a sale is made will result in the affiliate getting a commission.
Affiliate Program: A program set up by companies to reward affiliates for sending them new traffic, leads or potential sales. It is also called a referral program.
Ajax: To send and receive data without having to reload the entire page.
Alexa: An analytics website that compares other websites against each other in terms of traffic, demographics and inbound links.
Algorithm: The formula used to see your blog page’ ranking in terms of search engine results.
Alt Attribute: Used with XML or HTML documents to specify alternative text that will be displayed if the elements will not render in the correct manner.
Anchor Text: This is the clickable text in the hyperlink. The words used are important in terms of search engine optimization.
API: Application Programming Interface. Programmed rules and instructions by an application to lets other apps communicate with it.
App: Short for Application, this is popular optional software for your phone or computer.
Avatar: A graphic representation of yourself that is on a website. Basically, it is your image or graphic that represents you.
B
Backlinks: Links that connect one site to another
Back End: A place where authorized users can create or modify content on their website.
Badge: How bloggers encourage other bloggers to promote their blog by using a small image with a link attached. Sometimes it is called a Button.
Bandwidth: The total amount of data and traffic that is allowed between your website and the web.
Banner: A blog header or blog advertisement.
Black Hat SEO: Deceptive or illegal ways to use search engine optimization to improve the search engine ranking on a website.
Blog: A website that contains posts. Visitors normally leave comments on the post.
Blogger: The person who owns the blog.
Blogosphere: The community of bloggers.
Blog Roll: A number of links on a blog that reflects the favorite sites of the blogger.
Blospot: The subdomain of blogs created by Google’s Blogger platform.
Bookmark: A stored link on a browser.
Bookmarklet: a fake or faux bookmark that when clicked will do a function such as on Pinterest’s “Pin It” service.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of people who only look at your site once before they leave.
Browser: A program like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and the like to view web pages.
C
Captcha: The letters or numbers required to enter before submitting a comment, data or password to a website.
Carnival: A blogging event where the posts are center on a singular theme. Hosted by one blogger, the participants post their links to the subject matter at hand.
Category: To group blog posts into separate topics.
Click-Through Rate: This is the number of times that an advertisement is clicked as a percentage of the number of impressions that the ad will receive.
Cloaked Links: These are affiliate links that have been converted so that they look like different links. In essence, this is done for reasons that include making them simpler to list, share or track. However, i may also be done simply to cover the fact that they appear to be affiliate links. Basically, this is done to increase overall clicks and sales using somewhat covert means.
CMS: Content Management System: This is software that allows you to create, publish and then manage the content of your website. This also falls under platforms as well.
Comments: These are the responses from visitors to a blog that leave behind their thoughts and feedback in relation to a particular post on the site.
Commission: This is the income an affiliate earns for generating sales or lead’s for the products or services from a merchant.
Conversion Rate: The overall percentage of visitors who actually convert their page views into a type of action results in making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter and the like.
Contextual Advertising: This is advertisements that are on a website based on the search history of the visitor or perhaps the words used to find the particular website from a search engine.
Cookie: Short text files on a computer that will save information for a particular blog or website that may be retrieved at a later time.
Collaborative Blog: A blog where multiple bloggers post on a single subject such as politics or a single issue. Sometimes, this is called a group blog.
cPanel: Web hosting control panel which provides the interface and tools for the user so they can manage or host their website or blog.
CPC: Cost Per Click. This is the amount earned each time a visitor clicks on an advertisement that is displayed in your blog or website.
CPM: Cost Per Mille: The amount earned when an advertisement is displayed at least 1000 times on your blog or website.
Creative Comments: Non-profit organization that released many copyright licenses that help creators of images, photos, music and the like inform which ones are available for public use.
CSS: Cascading Style Sheets These are files that define the display of HTML elements.
CSS Sprites: This is a collection of icons or images that are put together to form a larger image called a sprite sheet. They render performance and displayed using CSS.
CSV: Comma Separated Values: A file that stores plain text data of fields and record where each file is separated by a comma or in some cases a tab.
D
Dashboard: Sometimes called the “dash”, this is the admin area of your blog where the posts are made, the comments are replied and moderated and so forth.
Deep Linking: Here is where you create posts that include links that will direct people to various pages on your website. The homepage is generally not included as part of a deep linking strategy. This method encourages your visitors to stay longer at your blog.
Div: This is a CSS term that splits your content into different containers which can be styled as you see fit.
DIY: “Do It Yourself”, a term that is often used by bloggers who create different crafts and decorations in their tutorials.
Domain Name: This is a series of letters, numbers and sometime hyphens which are separated by periods that is the address of a website.
Domain Name Registrar: This is a proper organization that oversees the registration of domain names.
Dooced: A term used when one loses their job because of their website. The term originated with Heather Armstrong who created Dooce.com.
E
E-Book: This is a PDF document that is usually sold for profit or given away to create leads for a blogger’s business. Quite often, they are used as leads to attract people to their newsletter or social media page.
E-Mail Marketing: This is a form of advertising that uses e-mails to let audiences know about new products, discounts and the like.
Embed: This is to place content from one website into your post or page.
Evergreen Content: This is a post that contains material which is timeless, making it just as relevant five or ten years from now as today.
F
Favicon: Also called “favorite icon”, a favicon is usually a small symbol similar to a logo and appears in book marks, browser tabs and the like.
Facebook: Arguably the largest and most popular social media website.
Flat Design: A two-dimensional or “flat” form of design that does not use three-dimensional attributes.
Flickr: A photo-sharing social media site that also uses content.
Footer: The bottom part of the blog reserved for copyright notice and links for contact info, policies, terms of service and the like.
Forums: A discussion board where people can communicate with each other, share ideas or get support.
Front End: The part of your blog that all visitors see when they visit your site.
FTC: Federal Trade Commission. They govern business practices on the net for US companies.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. Uploads files from your computer to your server.
G
Geotargeting: The practice of targeting specific content for those who live in a particular area. Often used by businesses with a local store or outreach to customers that live in their community.
Gravatar: Global Avatar. This shows an image of the author along with their email address whenever they leave a comment.
Gallery: A collection of images within a particular post. Sometimes they can be displayed altogether, one-by-one or in a slideshow format.
Ghost Blogging: To write posts or blogs while using another name or no name.
GIF: Graphics Interchange Format. This is a file that is most commonly used when saving graphics with black colors or logos. Used in transparency and especially in animation.
Gmail: A very popular email system developed by Google. It is free to use.
Google+: A very popular social network site that was created by Google and is free to use as well.
Google AdSense: This is a contextual advertising program that is powered by Google and arguably the most popular of its type.
Google Analytics: An analytics tool created by Google that is free to use.
Google Feedburner: This is a web feed management tool that was created by Google.
Google Reader: This is a RSS reader that was created by Google and is free to use.
Gravity Forms: A popular WordPress plugin that will create and manage forms of all different kinds.
H
Hashtag: This is a way of tagging posts within a particular network. For example, Twitter and Instagram are two social media sites where viewers can see all type of related updates, posts and images by other users through a hashtag.
Header: This is the top part of your blog that normally contains the logo and any other pertinent information that belongs in the first place your visitors will look.
Heat Map: A map showing your blog and the areas where a specific page is viewed or clicked on the most by visitors. The clicks are represented by different colors which in turn will resemble a heat signature which is the origin of the term.
Hotlinking: An image that is used on your website which is being hosted by another website.
.htaccess: Here, a file is placed in the directory level of the website. This will allow for a de-centralized approach of the overall management of the configuration of the web server.
Hyperlink: This is where a link to another website is placed within text or an image that when clicked will take the reader to another destination.
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language: The language which uses tags in order to describe the particular content of the page itself.
I
IAB: Interactive Advertising Bureau: A website that provides guidelines, practices and standards to help grow interactive advertising.
iFrame: A way of including a particular HTML page within another HTML page.
Impression: How people view a particular item on your web page, such as an ad, image, photo or video.
Inbound Link: This is a link on a website or blog that will point to your blog or website.
Indexed: This is a webpage that found by a search engine website and is ranked according to its relevance on a search results page.
Instagram: A popular photo-sharing social network site that offers different filters to help change the look or appearance of a photo.
Internal Link: This is where a link in planted on page that when clicked will take the reader to another part of the page.
IP Address: This is a unique combination of numbers that acts as identification code for every computer that is connected to the internet at the present moment.
IRL: In Real Life.
J
JavaScript: This is a programmable language that makes websites interactive.
JPG or JPEG: Joint Photographic Expert’s Group. This is a common image file that will compress information within a photo.
Jump: This is adding a link so visitors will see a summary of your post. It is commonly referred to as a “read-more” link.
jQuery: This is a JavaScript library that is designed to make JavaScript easier to use on your website.
K
Keywords: These are words used as queries on search engines so that you can find a relevant page or website. Keywords are used by bloggers to attract traffic to their sites as well.
Keyword Research: Finding out which keywords are the most relevant to your website via search engine rankings.
Keyword Stuffing: This is using too many keywords in a post or blog to draw in traffic from search engines.
Klout: This is a website that measures the influence of social media network users such as Twitter.
L
Landing Page: This is a dedicated website page that is intended to convert visitor into sales leads or for email marketing subscribers in terms of a particular product, service or database list.
Leader Board: A particular name for a website ad that is 728 x 90 pixels.
Lightbox: Showing images or files as an overlay to a blog page instead of creating a new page to be loaded.
Link Bait: Content on a website designed to generate attention and create more inbound links.
LinkedIn: A popular social networking site dedicated to making business-oriented connections with people.
Live Pinning: A way to generate interest and engagement on Pinterest by pinning images in real time.
Long-tail Keywords: A keyword that consists of at least three to five words.
Loop: For WordPress, it is the PHP code that is used to display posts.
LOTD: Look of the Day. This is a term for fashion bloggers for their daily outfit posting.
Lurker: A person who reads a blog, but never leaves a comment.
M
Malware: Malicious Software. Code designed to disrupt software or to collect information.
Media Kit: Page containing information about a blog’s achievements, advertising rate, sponsorship opportunities and traffic.
MedRec: Medium Rectangle. Short for a popular size of web advertisement that is 300 x 250 pixels.
Merchant: A person who sells goods or services.
Micro Blog: A blog with short content, such as Twitter.
Micro Niche: A niche subset, usually a small part of an overall niche.
Mobile Site: Website optimized to be seen on mobile device.
N
Navigation: A collection of image or text links that form the menu of a blog.
Newsletter: A regularly sent email used to alert subscribers of news, updates, and other important information.
Niche: A part of subset of a market. For example, shoes could be considered a subset of fashion.
Nofollow: Created to reduce spam, it is placed in hyperlinks that will dissuade spammers from sending their materials in response.
Notification Bar: This is a bar that sits at the top or bottom of your site. The intention of the bar is to send messages out to visitors, such as a link that may bring them to a free download, discount or coupon code that you may have to offer.
O
Organic Search Results: The listing that will appear on results pages from search engines because the content is relevant to the word or phrase that was entered. Other results are paid advertisement that appears on results pages for that reason.
Orphan: A short line or word that appears at the end of a paragraph.
Outbound Link: A link that is directed at an outside site or page.
Outsourcing: Hiring a third party to carry out blog or site related tasks which may include design and technical support aspects.
P
Page: A page within the site or blog that is not a part of the blogging content itself. A Contact page or About Us page are examples of a static page.
PageRank: This is an algorithm used by Google to rank sites as part of their search engine results.
Page View: Also called a page impression, this is the loading of a single HTML page on the net.
Parallax: A web design technique where the background is moving slower than the foreground when scrolling occurs. The result is a three-dimensional effect on the screen.
Parent Theme: A theme that is dedicated to parents in response to child-related themes.
Permalink: A permanent link directed at a specific document, article or forum entry.
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. The scripting language used with HTML to create pages.
Pillar Content: This is solid, meaty content that will have long term or timeless appeal. Usually, this term is used to describe what you blog is all about.
Pingback: Also called a Trackback, it is an automated notification that another blogger will have linked to your post.
Pinterest: A popular social network or bookmarking site that is best described as an online visual board. This is a positive traffic driver for bloggers who post images in order to generate interest.
Platform: This is software used to create and maintain a site or blog.
Plugin: For WordPress, this is a folder of files that are added to the blog itself in order to provide it with more features or functions.
PNG: Portable Network Graphics. This is a type of image file that does not lose any quality when editing. However, it does not support animation such as a GIF file.
Podcast: A downloadable digital file that is played on your computer or media player.
Pop-Ups: This is a form of advertising that is displayed in a smaller window which “pops up” when a visitor sees your site or sometimes when they perform a pre-selected action. They are often used to encourage visitors to sign up for contest, newsletters and the like.
Post: An article found on a blog.
PPC: Pay Per Click. This is an advertising model where the advertiser pays the owner of the blog each time their ad is clicked.
Q
Quantcast: This is an analytics site designed to measure web traffic and audience geography and demographics.
Quora: This is a Question & Answer type website that connects people though their interests
R
Rate Card: A document that outlines price and placement options for advertisers on a site and similar properties such as newsletters.
Reblog: To repost another blogger’s post on your site. You click the “reblog” button to indicate their credit.
Reciprocal Link: An agreement that links at least two blog sites together for mutual benefit.
Rectangle: A common name for a web advertisement that is 180 x 150 pixels.
Redirect: To force a web browser to travel from one URL to another one.
Repin: Adding an established Pinterest image of someone you follow to your own Pinterest board so it can be shared.
Responsive Design: A blog layout that will change depending on the screen size or device used to view it.
Retweet: To repost a tweet from another user on your account.
Rich-media ads: An interactive, Flash, video or HTML advert.
RSS: Rich Site Summary. It is a format for delivering web and blog content through an RSS reader.
Robots.txt: This is a file on your serve that informs search engines which type of blog content to not include or ignore.
S
Self-hosted blog: This is a blog that requires the owner to buy their hosting services so that they can actually use it. For example, WordPress.org blogs are the self-hosted type while the WordPress.com blogs are not.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization. This is a technique that primarily uses keywords to help improve the visibility of a website on search engine result pages so that they can increase their own site traffic.
SERP: Search Engines Results Page. A list of websites that are returned by a search engine based on a word or phrase that was being searched for by the user.
Shortcode: A specific WordPress code that is short in nature and can be used to quickly embed pieces of content, files and other objects.
Sidebar: This is a column used to display the content of the bog such as an advertisement or newsletter sign-up form. The content appears somewhere other than the main content or post itself on the page.
Site map: This is a list of pages on a blog or site that are accessible to search engines as well as visitors. A site map is somewhat like a menu or table of contents.
Slug: The keywords that are used to describe a page or post and create the URL.
Social media: Blogs and websites that encourage participants to share what they have found or created themselves with others. Facebook is an example of a social media site with user profiles that
encourage interaction with each other.
Spam: An unsolicited advertisement usually in the form of comments or emails.
Split Testing: AKA “A/B” testing
Splog: A spam blog. Generally speaking this is a poorly written blog that is designed for the sole purpose of attracting attention of search engines. The content is usually that of advertisements,
text-link ads and other promotional links with little to no original content.
Sponsored post: This is a blog post which is paid for by a sponsor. In most cases this is a post that is written by a blogger and approved by a particular sponsor as sort of a personal advertisement.
StumbleUpon: A social bookmarking website that is designed to drive traffic towards specific pages which have been submitted to the site itself. A user will “stumble” so to speak on the content that
relates to their specific interests.
Subscriber: A person who signs up to receive blog posts, email newsletters and the like.
Su.pr: Similar to StumbleUpon, this site will actually shorten a URL and then submit it to StumbleUpon in order to track stats and shares on Twitter from a single location.
SWF: Shockwave Flash. This is a type of file that delivers text, vector graphics, sound and video over the net.
T
Tag: This is a term used to classify a blog post that is similar to a particular category, but more specific in nature.
Tag Cloud: A collection of the words used to create tags for posts. You will usually see them displayed along the sidebar in a way that demonstrates how they have been used in the blog or post itself.
Tagline: A very short sentence or phrase similar to a slogan when describing your blog.
Taxonomy: A classification of posts, custom post types and pages on a WordPress blog where you will find categories, link categories and tags.
Text editor: This is a program that edits files in a plain text format.
Text link ads: An ad that features a hyperlinked text. It’s something purchased by advertisers to improve the search engine ranking position of a page where the ad links.
Theme: Similar to a “skin”, these are files that adjust how the blog is seen.
Time on site or Time online: The amount of time a visitor spends on your blog or site.
Timestamp: The time and date which is attached to digital data like a photo or post.
Tool bar: The area of your screen either at the top or bottom that contains important information such as sharing icons, login links and the like.
Trackback: A way to notify a blogger that another blogger has written something about their post and linked to that particular post.
Troll: A person who leaves negative or harmful comments on a blog post without identifying themselves.
Tumblr: This is a popular blogging platform that makes it easy to post and repost.
Tweet up: An event created by Twitter for people to meet up in their actual life.
Twitter: A popular microblogging platform that consists of posting “tweets” of 140 characters or less.
Twitter client: A mobile app that helps Twitter users manage their own accounts.
Twitter party: This is a virtual party on Twitter where participants use a pre-selected hashtag to chat or tweet to others in the party on a particular topic.
U
UGC: User Generated Content. This is a post or article that is created by the people who visit the blog and not the blog owner or someone that was hired by the blog owner.
Unique Visitor: This is an analytics term used to represent the number of people who visited your site over a certain pre-designated time frame. This is a different approach than people who are only
counted one time as they visit your site.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. This is the full address that will identify an exact location on the net for a particular page. The URL will include all slashes and colons.
URL Shortener: This is an online tool that will create a shorter version of the URL. In this manner, a URL can be posted in a message without breaking.
Users: A person who has been given access to an account according to programs such as Google Analytics or WordPress.
V
Viewability: This is an advertising metric used for websites and blogs that will track impressions that will be seen by visitors or users. For example, an advertisement at the bottom of the page where the
reader cannot see it because they have not scrolled down that far is not considered viewable in that instance.
Viral: A term used for videos, photos and posts that are shared on the internet in great numbers, usually because of social media platforms.
Vlog: A video blog
W
Webinar: An online workshop, presentation or seminar that is viewed by others through the web.
Weblog: Also known as a web log or a blog.
Web Server: This is a computer that contains software which can host a website.
Wide Skyscraper: A popular name for a web advertisement that is 160 pixels wide and 600 pixels tall.
Widget: This is content or a tool which you can add to the sidebar of a blog. Typically, a widget may consist of an archive menu, pages or perhaps a calendar.
Widow: For typesetting purposes, this is a word or perhaps a short line of words that appear at the start of a new column of text.
WordPress: This is an open sourced content management system that is used to create websites and blogs based on themes, templates and plugins.
WordPress Multisite: This is a WordPress mode which allows you to create a network of two or more WordPress sites that will run on a single installation of WordPress.
WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. This is a popular acronym used when displaying in your post editor correspondence as it is published.
X
XHTML: Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language. This is considered a more limited or stricter version of HTML.
XML: Extensible Markup Language. This is designed to transport and to store data as compared to HTML which is simply designed to display such data.
Y
YouTube: A popular Google social video-sharing platform. First created in 2006 and now used around the world with millions of videos stored.