Blogger – Lets you safely store thousands of posts, photos, and more with Google for free. Join millions of others Whether sharing your expertise, breaking news, or whatever’s on your mind, you’re in good company on Blogger.
CSS – Short for Cascading Style Sheets, and is the preferred way for setting the look and feel of a website. You don’t need to worry about understanding CSS if you are using a drag and drop platform like Squarespace or themed templates from platforms like WordPress.
Domain Name – This is your web address. For most authors it is their name, e.g. www.nanetteheffernan.com. If you name is taken you can add a word such as www.nanetteheffernanauthor.com. Like a home address, no two domain names can be the same.
DPI – Stands for dots per inch and refers to print (not digital). When we talk about digital pixels we use PPI (pixels per inch).
HTML – The standard markup language for creating web pages and web applications. Years ago web designers had to know how to write HTML in order to build websites. Today we are blessed with drag and drop technologies. P.S. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language if you care.
Image Aspect Ratio – The proportions of the height and width of an image. It defines its overall shape, and it is usually shown as W:H (W is the width and H is the height). A 4:3 image on a webpage means it would be divided into 4 parts wide by 3 parts high.
Meta Data – Metadata is data that describes other data such as file name, type, size, creation date and time. Every web page has several metadata fields: page title, page description, icon, ect. Metadata is an important tool for improving your search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines generally use metadata, along with a combination of other factors, to determine what is on a Web page and how relevant it is to a given search.
Meta Tags – Text that describe a page’s content; the tags (text) don’t appear on the page itself, but only in the page’s code. You likely know tags from social media, and meta tags are more or less the same thing, little content descriptors that help tell search engines what a web page is about. Search engines use the information you provide in a meta tag to determine if your page is relevant to specific search requests.
Open Source Platform – The term “open source” refers to something people can modify and share because its design is publicly accessible. WordPress.org is an open source platform so web designers can modify the platform to fit their needs. Squarespace is not open sourced meaning you can only use the tools they provide to you.
Pixles– Dots used to display an image on a screen or printed matter.
Plugin – In relation to websites, a plugin is a piece of software that acts as an add-on to give the website additional functionality such as a news letter sign up form or a social media button display. Think of them like apps for an iPhone. There are thousands of plugins available for some web design platforms like WordPress. And then there are widgets. I only bring them up in case you see the word. Widgets are always plugins and let’s just leave it at that for now.
SEO – Stands for search engine optimization. It involves techniques you can use to help your website rank higher in internet searches.
SM (Social Media) – Online communication channels where a community can interact, share content, and collaborate. The most popular social media platforms for authors are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pintrist, and Goodreads.
Squarespace – All-in-one web design solution for anyone looking to create a beautiful website. Domains, eCommerce, hosting, galleries, analytics, and 24/7 support all included. Squarespace is not free.
Templates & Themes – Website templates are pre-designed website page that you can customize. There are literally thousands of free templates you can scroll through. When you find one you like, you simple delete the dummy text and images and replace them with your own. Themes are a collection of templates designed to work together that make a whole website.
Tumbler – A microblogging and social networking website that allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.
URL – An abbreviation that stands for Universal Resource Locator. It’s a web address or the text you type into your internet browser when you want to go to a website.
WWW – World Wide Web. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably.
Web Designer – A person who designs and builds websites for a fee.
Web Host – There are special computers called web servers where all websites live. Larger companies and the super techy may opt to have their own web server. The rest of us rent space space from a web hosting company for a small monthly or annual fee.
Weebly – Weebly makes it surprisingly easy to create a high-quality website, blog or online store. Over 40 million people use Weebly to bring their unique ideas to life. It’s free to $12 per month for the pro version depending on your needs.
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org – Both .com and .org are free but the details are too long to review in this section. Here is a good link to explain the difference with a visual graphic for clarity.
XML – Extensible Markup Language data files. XML files don’t do anything in and of themselves except describe the transportation, structure, and storage of data.
