PreOrder Your Copy of TypePad for Dummies Here

From the category archives:

Definitions

What is the difference between blog categories and blog tags?

February 15, 2010

When I talk to beginning bloggers, I’m asked all sorts of questions. One I received this week was what is the difference between tags and categories? The obvious way to answer this is to define both, of course, but beyond that, I want to explain why you need both, how to name them, and how [...]

Read the full article →

What is HARO and How Does It Work?

October 7, 2009

Finding sources for a news article is hard when you don’t know where to look or if you don’t have contacts within an industry. It’s also hard to contribute your knowledge on a given subject when you don’t know who needs your help. Enter HARO, which stands for Help A Reporter Out and is a [...]

Read the full article →

Should I choose a hosted or non-hosted blogging platform?

August 12, 2009

This article defines what hosted and non-hosted blogging platforms are and explains the pros and cons of each.

Read the full article →

Choosing a Blogging Platform

January 21, 2009

When you decide to start your own blog, there are many choices to be made. The very first choice is which platform to use. The most popular blog platforms are Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress. This article will explain the basic differences of these platforms and the pros and cons of each.
When choosing your blog platform, [...]

Read the full article →

What is a permalink and why do I need it?

November 24, 2008

Before I start my explanation of permalinks, I want to show you two examples so you can refer to them as necessary:
An example of a blog’s main URL (which shows all the posts for a given period of time:
http://www.bloggingbasics101.com
An example of a permalink:
http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/101/2008/11/what-is-a-permalink/
A permalink is the link to an individual blog post. These are important [...]

Read the full article →

Do you know the difference between tags and categories?

November 19, 2008

Tags are usually one- or two-word (three at the most) descriptions (or keywords) of a blog post. For example, I might tag this article “define tags” and “define categories”. The tags you choose are used by sites like Technorati (the blog search engine) to find your site and group it according to tags (e.g., putting [...]

Read the full article →

What is a hexadecimal value?

September 17, 2008

A hexadecimal value (or hex code) is a six-digit alpha or numeric value that is read by a browser to produce a specific color. For example, the hex code for black is #000000; the hex code for white is #ffffff; the hex code for red is #cc0033.
It is possible to just type the name [...]

Read the full article →

What is a plug-in?

August 21, 2008

I asked my friend Shazia to help me explain this one. She was on the same panel I was at BlogHer08 and discussed plug-ins and widgets and the difference between the two.
Plug-ins extend the functionality of the blog. For example, a plug-in can turn a blog into an online store, or a photo gallery, or [...]

Read the full article →

What is CSS?

August 20, 2008

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is used within an HTML document to determine how an entire page or web site looks (fonts, headings, background images, etc.). By changing the CSS on one page, you can change the look and feel of the entire site instead of changing the code on each page individually. [...]

Read the full article →

What is HTML?

August 19, 2008

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It’s a simple programming language that tells your internet browser how to read your text and display it. For example, if you’d like to make something bold and you are coding your HTML by hand you would type
<strong>make this bold</strong>
and you would see
make this bold
in your browser.
The opening [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries