30+ Important Blogging Terms Every Site Owner Should Know

Starting a blog can be a confusing process for anyone, so having a grasp of the most common blogging terms is essential.

From SEO and content marketing to audience engagement and analytics, this comprehensive guide covers the most important definitions of blog-related terminology.

A Glossary of Common Blogging Definitions

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Search Engine Optimization, better known as SEO, is the process of improving your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through a variety of methods, including building links to your site and targeting the right keywords.

SEO helps drive organic traffic to your blog and can be used to help rank your website higher in search engine results.

It’s important to note that SEO takes time and effort, but it can pay off significantly as it is an effective way to get more potential users to discover and engage with your content.

Backlink

A backlink, also known as an incoming or inbound link, refers to any hyperlink going from one website to another.

A backlink is a vote of confidence and an endorsement for the website it links to, as it shows that other sites and people see your content as being valuable and interesting.

Backlinks are important because they help build authority with search engines like Google and Bing, making it more likely that readers will find your blog. It’s also important to note that the quality of the backlinks matters – it should be from reputable websites and sources, not spammy ones.

Responsive Design

A responsive design allows a blog to be easily navigated on different types of devices such as mobile phones, tablets and desktop without losing quality or page elements like menus and images.

Responsive design is important for users, as it ensures that no matter from which device a user is accessing your blog, they will have an optimal user experience.

Also, it helps you keep visitors engaged and decreases the chances of them leaving your blog.

User Experience

User experience (UX) is the overall feeling a user gets when they visit a website, including their perception of the website’s ease of use, responsiveness, and aesthetics.

Landing Page

A landing page is a specific page on your website that someone visits after clicking an advertisement or on a search result. It can be a simple blog post or it may be a page which includes a special offer, discount code or calls-to-action (CTA).

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Also known as conversion rate marketing, CRO is the process of discovering why people don’t convert on a specific web page and then making adjustments so they convert more often.

Conversion rate optimization is the practice of increasing the amount of people who complete an action (conversion) on a website, typically with the aim of increasing sales or leads.

It involves creating content that encourages users to take an action such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a free e-book. CRO can also involve improving the usability and design of a website or page, so that users are more likely to take the desired action.

Keyword

One of the most common blogging terms is keyword. A keyword is any word or phrase a user types into a search engine to find specific content. Keywords should be carefully thought out and researched to maximize the chances of appearing in search results, as well as being relevant to the topic of your blog post.

Also, incorporating keywords strategically into your blog post will help optimize it for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Keyword Research

Keyword research helps bloggers target specific phrases and queries that are more likely to be searched by actual users.

It usually involves looking for words or phrases people are most likely to search for when looking for content on a particular topic.

Keywords can be researched in many ways, including using tools like Google trends, Ahrefs, Semrush and Ubersuggest, analyzing competitors’ content, and analyzing web analytics data.

Meta Description

A meta description is a summary of the content of a web page or post. It usually appears below the post title in search results. It provides a brief description of what the page is about and helps search engines understand the content of the page.

Meta descriptions are also used to encourage users to click on your result in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

Content

The content is the essence of a blog. It consists of your website’s:

text,
pictures,
videos,
infographics,
and other visual elements.

Content is the main focus of any blog and it helps create an engaging experience for readers. Creating quality content means not only writing great and accurate articles but also including supporting media like images, video and infographics and linking to other relevant and authoritative sources.

Crafting engaging content is essential in order to stand out among all of the other blog posts in your niche or industry.

RSS Feeds

A Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feed allows subscribers to receive content updates from the blogs they follow so that they can stay up-to-date on all the latest content from the blogs they are subscribed to in one place.

These feeds enable Web users to eliminate the need for manually visiting blogs by delivering new blog posts and other content directly to their readers at regular intervals. Additionally, RSS feeds also provide visitors with an easy way of subscribing to your blog’s newsletter and staying connected with your content.

Referring Domain

A referring domain is a website that links to your blog or niche site.

Knowing the number of referring domains can help understand how popular or influential other sites consider your content to be, allowing you to measure success and reinforce the relationships between the websites in your network.

Pageview

One of the most common blogging terms is the pageview.

A pageview occurs every time a users views a specific web page on your website. It’s one of the key metrics to measure traffic, and it can provide valuable data about how popular or interesting a certain blog post may be.

Pageviews are also helpful in understanding patterns around engagement and how certain types of content tend to perform better than others.

Session

A session on a site is a period of time in which the user interacts with it. During a session, a website may track the user’s activities, such as which pages they visit and what items they purchase. Sessions generally end when the user closes their browser or after a certain period of inactivity.

Visit

A visit is a single session of a user on a website. The user initiates it by loading a page from the website and it ends when the user leaves the website. A visit can involve multiple pageviews and multiple interactions with the website, such as downloading files or submitting forms.

User

A user is an individual who interacts with your website or application. They may be a visitor, a customer, a competitor, or an employee.

Impression

The impression is a metric that measures the number of times a user views a page or an advertisement (even if they haven’t clicked on it or entered your website).

It is typically used to gauge the overall visibility of a website or the effectiveness of an online advertising campaign.

Dofollow Backlink

This is probably one of the most important blogging terms. A dofollow backlink is a type of backlink that passes on link equity from one website to another. Dofollow backlinks are created when one website links to another website and the link does not have a “nofollow” attribute applied to it.

This type of backlink is beneficial because it can help increase the search engine rankings of the website being linked to.

Nofollow Backlink

Nofollow backlinks are links from one website to another website which do not pass any Page Rank or authority from one website to the other. Site owners often use this link attribute to stop link spam and to reduce the risk of getting a penalization from search engines for linking to low quality websites.

Canonical Link

A canonical link is an HTML element that helps webmasters prevent duplicate content issues by specifying the “canonical” or “preferred” version of a web page.

This allows site owners to point search engines to the page they want to index, even if there are other URLs for the same content.

By using canonical links, webmasters can ensure that search engines index their preferred page. This way they also avoid duplicate content issues.

Page Indexing

Page indexing, in the context of SEO, is the process of adding a web page to a search engine’s index so it can search engine’s spiders and algorithms can find it. This is typically a task of a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist.

HTML

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the standard markup language for creating web pages. With HTML, web developers and bloggers can create and structure sections, paragraphs, headings, and links for web pages and applications. HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets (for example, <html>).

Widget

A widget is a small piece of code that can be installed in a blog or website to provide additional functionality. You can use it to display images, videos, text, HTML code, and other media.

Bloggers and site owners often use widgets to enhance the user experience of their website.

Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a score that Moz developed and it predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). It is based on a 0 to 100 logarithmic scale and is calculated using a machine-learning algorithm that evaluates multiple factors, including linking root domains and the number of total links.

Spam Score

The spam score is a percentage that measures how likely a website contains spam content or links. You can use it to assess the quality of webpages and to determine whether a website should be blocked or allowed.

It is usually based on several factors, including the number of outbound and inbound spam links and the number of spam-related keywords found on the site.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the clickable text of a link on a web page.

Alt Text

Alt text (also known as “alt attributes” or “alt descriptions”) is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for screen readers. It appears in place of images when an image file cannot be loaded, and provides better image context/descriptions to search engine crawlers, helping them to index an image properly.

Blog

A blog is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts or articles). Posts typically appear in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.

Sidebar

A sidebar on a blog is a section of the page that contains supplementary information or links related to the main content. It typically appears on the right or left side of a website.

Footer

A footer is the bottom section of a webpage or blog post. It typically contains information such as copyright notices, contact information, and links to other pages or related websites.

It is typically at the bottom of the page.

WordPress

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS). It is the most popular website management system in the world, used by more than 60 million websites.

WordPress allows users to easily create and manage websites without any technical or coding knowledge.

Plugin

On a WordPress blog, a plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website to extend its functionality. Examples of plugin functions include creating contact forms, adding a gallery, or integrating payment gateways.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who navigate away from a website after viewing only one page. It is one of the primary indicators of the effectiveness of a website’s user engagement.

Slug

A slug is a part of a URL which identifies a page or post in a form readable by users. It is usually derived from the page or post title. Sometimes it correspond to the main target keyword of a post.

URL

This is one of the most important blogging definitions. A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a specific webpage or file on the Internet. It is used to locate webpages, images, videos and any other resources that are hosted on the web.

Here’s an example of URL: https://wealthendipity.com/about-us/

SEM

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing. It is a term that describes any marketing activities related to search engines. For example, creating ads that display on search results, and paying for placement on search results is part of SEM.

Ad Network

A ad network is a service that connects advertisers to websites that want to host advertisements. Ad networks aggregate ad space supply from publishers and matching it with advertiser demand.

The best ad networks are Mediavine and AdThrive.

Here are two posts where you can find the requirements to apply:

CPC (Cost per Click)

Cost-per-click (CPC) is a pricing model used in online advertising where the advertiser pays a fee each time one of their ads is clicked.

It is a way of buying visits to a website, rather than attempting to “earn” those visits organically.

RPM (Revenue per Mille)

RPM (revenue per mille) is a metric used to measure the amount of revenue generated per one thousand impressions. It is calculated by dividing total revenue generated by the total number of impressions.

It is typically expressed in dollars per one thousand impressions (CPM).

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