Blog Talk: New to the book blogging world? Here is what you need to know to get started
I'll generalize here and say that book bloggers start out one of two ways:
1. They have followed book blogs for a while and after some thought they decide that they want to give it a try
2. One day they (randomly) decide that they want a book blog
I fell into the second category. I didn't know that "book blogging" was a highly active subset of bloggers. I knew they existed because I'd happen upon their reviews every now and then. But I didn't realize all of the extra activities and such that a majority of book bloggers took part in, and I had no clue what a lot of the terminology floating around out there was. Google was my friend (as it is every day in life). Life's a lot easier when someone puts it all in one spot for you :-)
DNF - A book that you did not finish. Typically used to describe a book that you didn't like rather than one you set aside for other reasons.
ARC - Advanced Readers Copy. A book that is available to reviewers but not yet available to the public.
Follow back - The act of following someone back on a specific site that they have followed you on.
Button swap - Bloggers can create an avatar (button) that is representative of them and then other bloggers can keep that button in their sidebar with a link to that site and vice versa. It's a way to promote each other's blogs.
Interactive Happenings
Meme - A weekly activity hosted by a blog(s) where you post on a certain topic. E.g., Top Ten Tuesday (list your top ten reads) and Waiting On Wednesday (talk about an upcoming release that you're excited about). For a very comprehensive list of memes visit Bookshelf Fantasies.
Challenge - Like a meme but sticks to a topic for many consecutive days. E.g., 10 Day Book Blogger Challenge, 30 Day Blog Ahead Challenge, 15 Days of Quotes
Blog hop - An organized event where you go from blog to blog and comment and follow other bloggers. Interchangeable with meme.
Blog tour - An organized event where an author posts excerpts, giveaways, promotional material, guest posts, etc. on a different blog each day, and followers go to each one and take part in the activities.
Linky - A list of bloggers that are on a blog hop/meme or blog tour. You enter your name and site via the host site or from the site of others who are already listed. Each site shows up as a clickable link for easy hopping.
Book blitz - Can be part of a blog tour where one book is featured, or it can refer to the promotion of a single book without a book tour.
Author spotlight - To highlight one author and their body of work.
Rafflecopter giveaway - A way for followers to enter their name for a chance to win something. To enter you must follow a request by the site (e.g., follow on twitter, comment on a post, subscribe) and winners are chosen at random.
Guest Post vs. Co-blogger
Guest post - Having someone from outside your blog write a post for your blog.
Co-blogger - Someone who is affiliated with your site and writes posts.
Site Analytics
SEO - Search engine optimization. A complex mix of factors that determines what position your site shows up as when people search key words using search engines.
Alexa - A web analyzer that shows your site's ranking by country and overall world ranking. It integrates SEO, visitor numbers, time visitors spend on site, bounce rate, and other website analytics.
Visitor number - The number of people who visit a site. Visitors can be counted more than once. E.g., if someone visits a site 5 different times in a day, then they are counted 5 times
Unique visitors - The number of different visitors to a site. The same visitor is not counted more than once for any given period of time. E.g., The same person visits 5 different times in a day, but is counted as 1 unique visitor
Bounce rate - A measure of how quickly visitors are leaving your site. E.g., 45% bounce rate means that 45% of people are clicking on 1 link to your site and leaving after viewing that link rather than continuing on to other posts. FYI - This can be misleading if many visitors are entering at your home page and your home page displays full posts and they don't have to click on individual posts to read the material.
Coding
It is not terribly important to know the ins and outs of all of these in order to "operate" a blog in its basic form. But you will inevitably want to change a layout or add a gadget and it is important to know which types of codes to use where.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language. This is the structural foundation of a page. It is how certain elements are built into a page using universal codes. E.g., creates links, lists, menus, inserts media, etc.
XHTML - Extensible Markup Language. The upgraded version of HTML that uses more precise language to add different functionality.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. The fine tuning mechanism for defining a sites presentation (e.g., color, font, layouts) and how it adapts to different devices. It is like HTML in that you can personalize it to do a variety of things but it is kept separate from HTML so that these more superficial features can be easily changed without disrupting the main structure of the site.
Blog Maintenance
Blog backup - To download all of your blog in its entirety.
Template backup and restore - To down your template so that if later coding changes cause a problem then you can restore the template to it's last saved version. This does not backup, change, delete, or restore posts. Those are left alone.
Gadgets (Blogger) - Features that you can add to your sidebar
Widgets (WordPress) - Features that you can add to your sidebar
Favicon - Favorite Icon. The little icon that appears next to your web address in the address bar. It's what is saved as an identifier when a site is favorited. Many are left as the generic browser icon.
1. They have followed book blogs for a while and after some thought they decide that they want to give it a try
2. One day they (randomly) decide that they want a book blog
I fell into the second category. I didn't know that "book blogging" was a highly active subset of bloggers. I knew they existed because I'd happen upon their reviews every now and then. But I didn't realize all of the extra activities and such that a majority of book bloggers took part in, and I had no clue what a lot of the terminology floating around out there was. Google was my friend (as it is every day in life). Life's a lot easier when someone puts it all in one spot for you :-)
Terminology:
Some are self-explanatory, but since there are a variety of readers and bloggers from different backgrounds, I thought best to cover everything.
Basic Lingo
ARC - Advanced Readers Copy. A book that is available to reviewers but not yet available to the public.
Follow back - The act of following someone back on a specific site that they have followed you on.
Button swap - Bloggers can create an avatar (button) that is representative of them and then other bloggers can keep that button in their sidebar with a link to that site and vice versa. It's a way to promote each other's blogs.
Interactive Happenings
Meme - A weekly activity hosted by a blog(s) where you post on a certain topic. E.g., Top Ten Tuesday (list your top ten reads) and Waiting On Wednesday (talk about an upcoming release that you're excited about). For a very comprehensive list of memes visit Bookshelf Fantasies.
Challenge - Like a meme but sticks to a topic for many consecutive days. E.g., 10 Day Book Blogger Challenge, 30 Day Blog Ahead Challenge, 15 Days of Quotes
Blog hop - An organized event where you go from blog to blog and comment and follow other bloggers. Interchangeable with meme.
Blog tour - An organized event where an author posts excerpts, giveaways, promotional material, guest posts, etc. on a different blog each day, and followers go to each one and take part in the activities.
Linky - A list of bloggers that are on a blog hop/meme or blog tour. You enter your name and site via the host site or from the site of others who are already listed. Each site shows up as a clickable link for easy hopping.
Book blitz - Can be part of a blog tour where one book is featured, or it can refer to the promotion of a single book without a book tour.
Author spotlight - To highlight one author and their body of work.
Rafflecopter giveaway - A way for followers to enter their name for a chance to win something. To enter you must follow a request by the site (e.g., follow on twitter, comment on a post, subscribe) and winners are chosen at random.
Guest Post vs. Co-blogger
Guest post - Having someone from outside your blog write a post for your blog.
Co-blogger - Someone who is affiliated with your site and writes posts.
Site Analytics
SEO - Search engine optimization. A complex mix of factors that determines what position your site shows up as when people search key words using search engines.
Alexa - A web analyzer that shows your site's ranking by country and overall world ranking. It integrates SEO, visitor numbers, time visitors spend on site, bounce rate, and other website analytics.
Visitor number - The number of people who visit a site. Visitors can be counted more than once. E.g., if someone visits a site 5 different times in a day, then they are counted 5 times
Unique visitors - The number of different visitors to a site. The same visitor is not counted more than once for any given period of time. E.g., The same person visits 5 different times in a day, but is counted as 1 unique visitor
Bounce rate - A measure of how quickly visitors are leaving your site. E.g., 45% bounce rate means that 45% of people are clicking on 1 link to your site and leaving after viewing that link rather than continuing on to other posts. FYI - This can be misleading if many visitors are entering at your home page and your home page displays full posts and they don't have to click on individual posts to read the material.
Coding
It is not terribly important to know the ins and outs of all of these in order to "operate" a blog in its basic form. But you will inevitably want to change a layout or add a gadget and it is important to know which types of codes to use where.
HTML - Hypertext Markup Language. This is the structural foundation of a page. It is how certain elements are built into a page using universal codes. E.g., creates links, lists, menus, inserts media, etc.
XHTML - Extensible Markup Language. The upgraded version of HTML that uses more precise language to add different functionality.
CSS - Cascading Style Sheets. The fine tuning mechanism for defining a sites presentation (e.g., color, font, layouts) and how it adapts to different devices. It is like HTML in that you can personalize it to do a variety of things but it is kept separate from HTML so that these more superficial features can be easily changed without disrupting the main structure of the site.
Blog Maintenance
Blog backup - To download all of your blog in its entirety.
Template backup and restore - To down your template so that if later coding changes cause a problem then you can restore the template to it's last saved version. This does not backup, change, delete, or restore posts. Those are left alone.
Gadgets (Blogger) - Features that you can add to your sidebar
Widgets (WordPress) - Features that you can add to your sidebar
Favicon - Favorite Icon. The little icon that appears next to your web address in the address bar. It's what is saved as an identifier when a site is favorited. Many are left as the generic browser icon.
Love this post! It's a great idea to put all the terminology in one place. Had I just read a post like this when I first started out as a blogger, it would've helped at lot!
ReplyDeleteGlad you found it helpful!
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