90 ESSENTIAL Blogging Terms That Every Blogger Ought to Know

90 ESSENTIAL Blogging Terms That Every Blogger Ought to Know

If you’re a part of the different Facebook Groups out there, you’ve probably come across blogging terms that are confusing to you.

And many times, people won’t bother explaining what those terms mean and you can’t blame them either. They assume that everyone is on the same page.

I, therefore, decided to come up with this list of blogging terms and what they mean. Ready to become fluent in blogging lingo? Let’s go!

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Email Marketing Terms

Lead Magnet/Freebie: are incentives (benefits) that a marketer (such as blogger) offers their audience in exchange for contact info such as email addresses.





Email marketing: is the use of email addresses to tell a targeted population of products or services being offered.





Email subscribers: are the audiences who have accepted to be included in an audience that receives regular email info from a party such as a blogger, marketer, etc





Mailing list: is the list of audiences (email subscribers) who have accepted to receive emailed material regularly.  





Split testing A/B testing: Is the comparison of two different web pages to identify the one that performs better (gives higher conversion rate).





Opt-in: Means to accept to be part of something (subscribe) such as an email subscriber.





Segmented email lists: Is an email marketing technique where the subscribers are grouped into different subscriber lists based on different factors.



If you’re looking for a good email marketing service, you can check out Aweber. Their customer service is excellent, it’s easy to use and has lots of great features. 

SEO Terms

SEO: Short for Search Engine Optimization, this is a measurable and repeatable process that is used to send signals to web search engines and helps a site or blog to appear on them.





On-page SEO: Refers to the optimization of individual web pages so as to rank higher in search engines or attract more traffic. An example of this can be placing a keyword in your title, in your headlines and within the content of the blog post.





Off-page SEO: Refers to the actions that you take OUTSIDE of your blog to impact your rankings in search engines like Google. An example of this is getting links from other blogs to point to your blog. 





Black Hat SEO: Is the use of methods or tactics that violate the terms of service of search engines to acquire higher ranking and more traffic. An example of this is filling your blog post with certain keywords, otherwise known as keyword stuffing, or buying backlinks. 





White Hat SEO: Is the opposite of black hat SEO where the right terms are followed to acquire better ranking. In addition, this method focuses more on human audiences and not search engines.





Broken Links: Also known as a dead link or 404 error, refers to a web page that is no longer accessible (is not working)





Guest post: This is publishing or writing an article on another person’s website or blog (with their permission).





Searcher intent: Refers to the ultimate goal that a user is seeking when using a search function or search engine.





Search volume: Is the amount or quantity that a particular term or keyword is searched on a page. It is measured per month.





CTR: Short for ‘Click through Rate’, is a measure of how many visitors have clicked on a certain link.





CTA: Short for ‘Call-to-action’, is a line or image usually at the end of an article that encourages or challenges the reader to do something. An example of a CTA would be “Please share this blog post if you enjoyed it!”





Keyword: This is a phrase or word that someone uses in trying to get something specific. An example of that would be “losing weight fast.”





Keyword research: Is an SEO method which uses searching and finding keywords (most relevant and most used) to improve a site or page ranking.





Keyword tools: These are online instruments that use Google Autocomplete to generate tens to hundreds of relevant keywords for any given topic. Two of the highly recommended ones are Semrush andAhrefs. 





Domain authority (DA): Is search engine ranking scale starting from 0 to 100 which defines how well a website ranks on search engine pages. For example, Facebook has a domain authority of 100. 





Backlink: Refers to a live link or URL which directs to another page, from another page. When clicked, it takes the reader to a different page or site.





Internal link: Is a link within a website which connects one page to another (within the same website).





No-follow link: This is a link that never counts as a point in a page’s favor. In short, it never helps a page to rank better in search engines.





Do-follow links: This is a link that allows search engines to follow them and reach a website. It helps a site to rank and perform better in search engines.





Organic traffic: Is traffic that comes mainly from search engines, and is in no way paid for or advertised.





Paid traffic: Is the use of [paid] search engine marketing to send visitors to a website. Facebook and Google Adwords are good examples.





Targeted traffic: Are visitors who visit a website when already aware of what they are looking for, knowing they will find it on that website, i.e. they aren’t random visitors.





Bounce rate: Is a measure of how many people visit a site or open a link then leave immediately without checking more pages or posts.





Long form content: Refers to content (such as article or blog) that has more than 750 words, preferably 2000.





Ranking: Is the position where a page or site is placed within search engine results. It can be number two on page 1 of Google, on page two, etc. 





Link Building: Is an SEO trick where one boosts their SEO by asking other content writers to link to their site.





Google Algorithm update: is an intelligent filter introduced by Google to keep only the good and worthy sites ranking high in search results. Panda is a tool under this algorithm which filters out sites with bad and poor content and keeps them away from good ranking. The Penguin algorithm tool reduces the “trust” that Google has in sites that cheat to gain higher ranking.



Hosting Services, WordPress and Other Tech Terms

Page load time: Is the duration (in seconds) that it takes for a web page to download and display all its contents in the browser window.





Uptime (for hosting companies): is the amount of uninterrupted time that a hosting system or server experiences, or how long a website remains hosted without interruption.





Shared hosting: This is a web hosting service that allows many websites to reside on a single web server which is connected to the internet.





Plug-in: Is a program or software that can be easily added or installed to a larger program such as a browser to give it extra features.





301 redirect: Refers to a permanent re-routing whereby a person upon clicking a certain URL link is taken a different URL other than the original one.





Anchor text: Refers to the visible and clickable text in a hyperlink which is in most cases in blue color. When clicked, it opens the linked page.





Site map: This is the list of all the pages on a website, more of a table of content of the website.





Site architecture: Refers to the structure of a website. Structure entails features such as user interface design, site usability, ease of navigation and so on.





Title tag: This is an HTML element which specifies the title of a website or web page. They’re the clickable headlines displayed by search engines and lead us to websites.





Meta description: Refers to a minute HTML summary, usually below 155 characters, which summarizes the content of a page.





Page views: Is the number of times that a visitor views a web page.





Sessions: is a group of user interactions which one user makes within a given timeframe on a website. In short, what a user does from when they visit a site until they leave.





Mobile responsive: This is a site that responds (changes) to fit the device (in this case a mobile phone) that the visitor uses to visit it for the best experience.





Analytics: Refers to some methods of tracking and measuring site performance. In it, factors like bounce rate, sessions, SEO optimization and the rest are analyzed and presented as data.





AMP: Short for ‘Accelerated Mobile Pages’, this is an open-source coding format which publishers load on their websites to enable them to load faster on mobile devices since desktop resources can be heavy and slow on them.





Https vs. Http: HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is the protocol over which data is shared between a browser and the website that one is browsing. The “S” in HTTPS means “Secure”, telling you that your data is protected through encryption.





Themes: A theme is a preset setup which determines the overall style and appearance of a website or blog. It includes the color, text, layout and so on.





Widgets: These are mini-apps which can be added to programs so as to display information or provide an extra way for a user to interact with the program.





Header and footer: The header is the top-most part of a blog and contains crucial info like blog name, key sub-pages, and contact page. The footer is the lowest part of the blog and contains info such as taglines, social media buttons, logos, etc.





C-panel: Also called control panel, this is a feature provided by hosting companies to enable site owners to manage their sites from a web-based interface.





Permalink: A permalink (permanent link) is the full URL for specific content like a blog post or a page which is permanent and never changes with time.





Indexed pages: This is a webpage whose phrases and keywords have been analyzed, accepted and added to search engines like Google, making them retrievable by a user.





User experience: This is the satisfaction that a web visitor (user) experiences, judged by the site’s accessibility, usability, and efficiency.



Of Blog Monetization and Affiliate Marketing Terms

Affiliate Commissions: Is the percentage that a person earns if they market something on behalf of a company and a customer makes a purchase through their affiliate links.





Recurring commissions: These are the repetitive payments made to affiliate after a set duration such as a month.





Affiliate links: Refers to a special URL which has the ID or username of the affiliate used to track and record the traffic or sales that the affiliate sends to the advertiser.





Affiliate marketing network: This is a marketing approach whereby companies that offer related products (not a must) pass leads to each other. In short, after purchasing from them, they lead you to another company that offers something which compliments what you bought. An example is ShareASale.





PS: If you want to learn more about affiliate marketing, you’ll need to check out Carly’s Affiliate Marketing Strategiescourse. It is filled with plenty of tips and tricks that will help demystify how you can go about making money with affiliate marketing. You’ll love it!





Income report: This is a summary of a blog’s financial performance in terms of how much was spent and how much it earned. The reports are mostly produced monthly or quarterly.





Coupon code: Refers to a computer-generated code of numbers or letters or both, which upon being entered in specific shopping carts give the buyer a discount.





Monetize: Is the act of optimizing a blog or site to start making money. One can start affiliate marketing, post ads or sell content as a way of monetizing a blog.





MMO- Make money online: Is the ability to earn money by use of an online (internet) channel. Blogging, transcribing, dropshipping are all channels of making money online.





Sponsored post: Also called a promoted post, is a form of an advert which appears similar to the environment in which it is posted. For example, a cooking oil company can pay a popular food blogger to market them indirectly using a wittily-crafted blog post.





Passive income: This is the form of money which one makes without doing too much to earn it. For example, you can sell a book on Amazon where it will make money even in your absentia.





CPM: Short for ‘cost per mille’, it means the cost that one has to pay for every one thousand impressions made on a blog or site.





CPC: Short for ‘cost per click’, it means the cost of each click made on an ad, link, site and so on.





PPC: Short for ‘pay per click’, it represents the amount that one makes for each click made on an ad, link, site, etc.





RPM: Short for ‘rate per mille’, this is page revenue made per one-thousand impressions on a site or blog.

General Blogging Terms

JV’s – Joint ventures: Is when two or more parties decided to collaborate on a venture. For instance, a beauty blogger can team up with a fashion blogger to further their complementary ventures together.





Engagement: Is a measure provided by a web user on a given piece of content regarding how relevant the content was to them.





Landing page: this is usually the first page that a visitor sees when they open a website. It might introduce, market or advertise the sole purpose of the site.





Above the fold: Refers to a highly visible web page, usually half the size of a website and positioned in the upper or lower half to make it visible to audiences without scrolling,





Conversion: Is the occurrence where a site visitor completes a specific action such as making a purchase, opting into a service, sharing on social media, to mention but a few.





Niche: This is a well-defined target population or segment which one focuses on and builds their site to serve. For instance, a cat blog is said to be in the pet niche.





Prospects:  a potential customer who has indicated interest in your products or services and who fits your target market.





Media Kit: Is more of a blogger’s “resume”, and contains all their details, impressive statistics, and relevant accomplishments.





Sales funnel: Refers to the process of convincing a blog visitor to purchase a product or item, or to opt into some of your incentives. Basically, it is converting a potential client to a client who actually purchases.





Optimize: This is the planning and arrangement of blog resources in a manner that enables utmost performance for features like SEO, higher conversion rate and user engagement.





Evergreen content: This is blog content that will always be relevant (fresh, catchy and informative) regardless of how long ago it was posted.





Linkbait: Refers to content that is valuable and striking such that other blogs end up naturally linking to it. 





Viral: This is the act of site or blog content circulating rapidly and wildly over the internet, or from one user to another.





Infoproduct: Is a manual or tutorial which you create using your expertise or knowledge, which you can sell as a product or service to make money online. Examples are courses and ebooks.





Web 2.0: This is also known as the second generation of the World Wide Web where previous HTML pages are being replaced by simpler and more interactive approaches such as social media and blogging.





Blog outreach: This is a marketing system where a blogger will seek out other bloggers in the hope that they will either link back to their blog, or share their blog post with their audiences on their email list or on social media. 





Lead: An individual or organization who has an interest in what you are selling. 





Qualified leads: A qualified lead is a lead who is far more likely to be interested in your products or services than other leads.





Gravatar –  A little picture that appears when you leave a blog comment or when you leave a comment on a forum. 

I hope you enjoyed this list of blogging terms that every newbie blogger needs to know. See you on the other side of blogging success!

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