How to embed media in WordPress in a second

If you want to embed, for example, a YouTube video in a post, all you do is paste the URL of the video into the editor, unlink it and save/publish. See our ultimate guide to embedding HTML and iframes in WordPress on WPGarage for more info on how this works.

The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work 100% of the time. Luckily, there’s usually a reason for this. So if you’re having trouble embedding media in your WordPress site, see if the following tips help you out.

1. Your WordPress site isn’t set to enable embeds of this kind.

Whenever you set up a WordPress site, you have the option to allow embeds or not. Make sure you’ve chosen this option.

1. Go to Settings > Media.
2. Under Embeds check the option: “When possible, embed the media content from a URL directly onto the page. For example: links to Flickr and YouTube.”
3. Save changes.

2. You aren’t using the right link

It’s possible you aren’t using the right link. For example, maybe you copied the link of a channel instead of an individual video.

Here is an example of a URL that won’t work:

http://www.youtube.com/illuminea#p/u/1/LlSeZIHroNw

Instead, the URL should look something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlSeZIHroNw

Lets see it work (all I did was un-hyperlink the above link to get the embedded video below):

Man, it’s so easy I could spit!

3. Extra code is messing things up

Maybe extra code is being added to the WordPress editor without you realizing. Try embedding the link into the HTML editor instead of the Visual one. If you see any extra code aside from the link itself, remove it.

4. The YouTube user isn’t allowing embeddings of their media

When someone uploads a video to YouTube, they can choose whether or not others will be able to embed their video around the web. If they chose not to allow it, no matter what you do, you won’t be able to embed it into your site.

Want to know how to change the embedding settings on one of your YouTube videos? Here’s how:

1. Make sure you’re logged into YouTube (with your Google account).
2. Click on the arrow next to your username in the top right-hand corner.
3. Click on My Videos.
4. Click Edit info on the video you want to edit.
5. Scroll down to Embedding and click the arrow next to it in order to see the two options.
6. Choose whether or not external sites will be able to embed your video.
7. Click Save Changes.

Anything else?

These are the problems we’ve found that prevent the awesome WordPress embed function from working. Have you found any other issues that don’t allow you to embed using links in WordPress?

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Feedburner is the only tool available that allows you to measure the number of people subscribed to your feed. It also allows you to offer people an email subscription option, which automatically sends them new posts by email if they subscribe to that option.

In order to measure the feed subscribers via feed reader, you need to redirect your blog’s feed to a Feedburner URL. Most of the time, people use the regular Feedburner URL that looks like feeds.feedburner.com/MyFeed. But you can also have a branded feed URL like http://feeds.illuminea.com/illumineaBlog. Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mybrand and login with your Google account. Copy the higlighted text after CNAME.

2. Go into your cPanel where your domain is hosted and open the Simple DNS Zone Editor:

3. Add a CNAME as follows. In the Name field, type in: feeds In the CNAME field, paste in the highlighted text. The cPanel automatically fills in info to create a subdomain: feeds.thedomain.com. Basically, Google/Feedburner has you set up a subdomain that points to Google’s servers so they can serve the feed on your subdomain.

4. Wait up to 24 hours for propogation to finish. You can tell when it’s finished by going to feeds.yourdomain.com and getting a login page instead of a 404 error page.
5. Go to http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mybrand and fill in your feeds.yourdomain.com where designated on the page.
6. Click Activate.
7. Check to see if it’s working. Your feed should look something like this:  http://feeds.illuminea.com/illumineaBlog
8. Make sure to change the URL everywhere that a link to your RSS Feed appears but note that people can still sign up to your old URL: feeds.feedburner.com/illumineaBlog so you won’t lose out on any followers.

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Why WordPress?

WordPress is an open source Content Management System (CMS). Basically this means that regular people like you and me can, relatively very easily, build and tweak websites that are cool, clear, professional and unique.

What is the course exactly?

When: Starts Feb. 15, 2011. 9:30am-1:30pm Tuesdays for 8 weeks.

Where: Our office in Jerusalem

What: Here is the course outline:

1. HTML
2. CSS
3. How do websites and internet work? (And how to get mine to work)
4. Familiarizing yourself with WordPress part 1
5. Familiarizing yourself with WordPress part 2
6. Working with template files
7. Programming 101
8. Social networks, SEO, RSS…

Who’s teaching? Us, the illuminea team, will be teaching the course. We are the ones who work with WordPress every day and are very excited to share our knowledge with others!

Price: The course is 4,300 NIS though you’ll get a 10% discount if you sign up before January 13 and a 15% discount if you’re already an illuminea client. You will receive three months free hosting of your website and a certificate at the end.

Language

We decided that we’ll first offer the course in Hebrew. You can see our landing page for the course here.

Please let us know if you have any questions and/or if you may be interested in attending this or a different course later on in English.

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Step II: Time to start mapping

You own your dream domain! Don’t leave the domain provider site yet. Here is how to change the Nameservers in name.com.

Click on the cute “Account” man button at the top of the page:

You’ll arrive at a page like this:

Click on the info button of the domain you want to map to. You’ll get a pop up page and on the right it says Nameservers with a list under it.

To the right of Nameservers it says “edit.” Click on that button.

Insert the code from wordpress.com:

NS1.WORDPRESS.COM
NS2.WORDPRESS.COM
NS3.WORDPRESS.COM

And remove the code that was there before.

Click Update and now lets move into the wordpress.com site.

Step III: Make changes in wordpress.

Make sure you’re logged into wordpress.com. Also make sure you’re in the the dashboard of the correct blog!!!

In the dashboard of the blog, along the left run a bunch of buttons. At the bottom is Settings and inside Settings is Domains. Click on that.

You’ll be prompted to add a domain. Write in the one you just purchased:

After you click Add domain to blog, you’ll be prompted to purchase the credits needed to pay for the mapping. Once you finish with that purchase, go back to Settings –> Domains. Click on the new domain which you want to act as your primary domain.

Step IV: Check out your new domain!

Go to the new address of your site, make sure it works, feel very proud and then tell the world!

Good job!

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This tutorial is helpful to someone who has decided to have a wordpress.com blog but wants to look cooler or more professional by using a custom domain like deenascreations.com instead of the standard wordpress.com domain like deenascreations.wordpress.com. Notice that both of those links go to the same place? Once you map your domain, you’ll be able to tell everyone your more impressive URL without the .wordpress.com part.

This is relatively easy to accomplish (just follow the instructions in this post) and then you will look oh so impressive and no one needs to know that it cost oh so little.

So, how much will it cost?

According to the current prices, around $10US per year will go to wordpress.com for the mapping and another amount will go to your domain provider of choice (the price depends on a few factors but the price of a “regular” domain is around $10US/year). You will need an American/Canadian or international credit card in order to fill these transactions.

Step I: Purchase a domain name

I am assuming you already signed up to wordpress.com and own a domain name there. It will look something like: iamwonderful.wordpress.com.

Now you need to purchase a custom domain. We currently recommend using name.com for this. Generally the way it works is that you own the domain name for a year and then have an option to pay for another year. When signing up to name.com, make sure to use an email address that you check regularly so you will get the notification when it’s time to renew the domain. Either that or you can set it up for automatic renewal.

So now, search for the domain name of your dreams. Enter any name in the space. Remember that:

1. It’s nice though unnecessary that both your .wordpress.com domain and your .com domain have the same name.
2. Don’t write any ending. So, for example, just write “iwishiweredeena” without .com.

Click enter and you’ll get results telling you which domains are available for that name. Here is an example:

Of course most people will agree that a .com domain is preferable over any of the other endings but on the other hand, sometimes it’s just too difficult to find an appropriate domain name with .com. You need to decide which one best fits your goals. (I personally think .co is also a cool option that recently came out but all endings are second to .com.)

Now check off the domain you want and click the checkout button.

Now you get to this page:

It’s a good idea to purchase the Whois Privacy so that not just anyone can have access to the information regarding who owns this domain. I recommend unclicking Google Apps for now. Google Apps is the way to host your email address on Google but that’s a whole other story.

Now create an account with name.com.

Pay for the domain.

Continue to the second and final part of this tutorial.

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Here is just a glimpse of what is going on. To get caught up on all the latest event check out the illuminea events calendar!

July 6, 2010. Tel Aviv, Israel.The #140conf. The #140conf Tel Aviv conference will be a place for people to share their passion about the real-time web and it’s ongoing effects on both business and on people.

July 14-16, 2010. Tel Aviv, Israel. Start-up Weekend 2010. Startup Weekend has been introduced to over 15,000 entrepreneurs in more than 100 cities around the world. Founded in June 2007, Startup Weekend provides a platform to pitch an idea, build the concept and present it to the audience in around 50 hours. At least 500 companies have been created over the lifetime of the worldwide event raising more than $2M in financing. This Startup Weekend will be held in The Peres Center for Peace’s facility. The event is planned to be significantly larger with 160 attendees and will offer more services than before. The Center will work with the management team in bringing Israeli & Arab entrepreneurs and “startupists” from the ICT community in Israel as well as the Palestinian Authority.

July 21, 2010. Tel Aviv, Israel. Hottest Trends and Innovations in the Digital Signage Market!. Aran Electronics will uphold a special seminar for marketing people to reveal the hottest trends and innovations in the Digital Signage market. The seminar will take place on July 21st at “Yafe Lee”-Park Hayarkon, Tel Aviv- between 09:30 – 12:30. Admission is free but subjected to early registration [limited seats). Come and learn how you can recruit the most powerful marketing tool to the advantage of your organization!

To check out what other exciting event are happening this July visit our July calendar page. To plan ahead, view illuminea’s calendar page.

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Today CommuniTech is concentrating on placement of, and training for, Marketing and Sales position worldwide. Growing up in Paris gives Elinor a clear advantage while helping Israeli organizations in placement projects for their European subsidiaries. Before founding CommuniTech, Elinor was the marketing director at the Israeli Mobile Association (IMA), Global Director of Marketing at Personeta, and Product Marketing Manager at Amdocs, from where she has a vast and global network of candidates. Learn more about Communitech here: www.communitech.co.il.

Today when the market is full of excellent candidates – the first buffer for you to get an interview is your CV. Your CV is your most important marketing tool – worth investing.

1. Personal Details – Must: Name/ Phone number and email

Do not forget email; companies use it for communication!

You can add other parameters like if you are born elsewhere – but marital status, children and your age are not relevant for getting a job and should not be listed

and no picture on the CV

2. Try not to exceed 2 pages (and yes – we know you have a lot to write about yourself)

Do not have more than 5 bullets on each position

3. Font: people are reading your CV.

If you want recruiters to like you use: Ariel font – size 11

4. Colors: I personally adore it; if someone is writing the company names in another color, it makes it easy to follow

5. Companies’ logo – if you worked for well known companies – add the logo to the CV – this always makes an impression

6. Executive summary – personally I am not a fan, but in some cases when it is hard to categorize the person, try to have a short one : write 4 bullets about

a. The role you can perform

b. Your market experience – Telco/ Web / Security/ Clean-Tech

c. Geographic expertise (Europe / APAC / Africa etc.)

d. Your strengths

7. Always write a short sentence about the companies you worked for – do not assume all recruiters know all the market (i.e. ” leading provider billing-ordering and CRM for telecom and IPTV”)

8. Education vs. Work Experience – what comes first? The order should be as follows: if you went to a well known university: put in on the top page (you worked hard to get in and it worth credibility). However, if you chose an unknown university but your career path is impressive: put the education on the bottom (and spare us your high-school name…and “megama”)

9. Prizes and awards: write about every single prize you ever got and if your company gave you a bonus awards / top grades – mention that as well.

10. Tips per roles:

a. Sales: write your customers’ names and size of deals

b. Marketing: write which PR agency / firm you used and which conventions you promoted

c. Engineer: write about all the technologies you are familiar with

A good CV is all about MARKETING!

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See results number 3 and 4? That’s us. Where’s PayPal or PayPal Israel? Nowhere to be seen.

Ranking high for this term was an accident for us. We happen to have published two blog posts on the subject of using PayPal in Israel over the past year, and as you can see the web is not exactly saturated with good content on this topic, so it was an easy score.

The funny thing is that as a result, people have begun to perceive illuminea as PayPal Israel experts. We get at least one phone call and/or email from people with questions about using PayPal in Israel about once a week.

PayPal Israel is missing an opportunity

Although PayPal officially serves the Israeli community, the amount of information available online about using PayPal in Israel is meager at best and confusing at worst, and the amount of people with questions is huge as is evidenced by the number of them contacting us with their PayPal questions.

I must give credit to Nissim Ohayon, Sr. Business Development Manager at PayPal Israel, who wrote a post on our blog about using PayPal in Israel, and even took the time to answer the many questions posed by readers in the comments.

However – maybe this is a sign that PayPal and/or PayPal Israel needs its own blog? PayPal should be engaging in the conversation, providing solid and timely information. I suspect that PayPal could win quite a lot of Israeli clients if it provided a minimum standard of online customer support.

Twitter’s great, but it can never take the place of the blog

This accidental positioning of our company as experts in the field of PayPal use in Israel demonstrates the strength and importance of blogging.

Twitter is all the rage these days, and people have even questioned whether twitter will take the place of the blog. The truth is, many people, myself included, are blogging less because they are spending more time on twitter. However, with all the value that twitter provides let nobody tell you that it can replace the power of blogging.

A blog allows you to present an idea and follow through on it. You cannot do that in 140 characters. (Can you imagine this post as a tweet? Let’s try: “illuminea appears #3 & 4 in Google SERPS for term PayPal Israel thanks 2 our blog. PayPal not even on 1st page. Lesson: keep blogging”. Not too bad!) In addition, it offers loads of content for search engines to index and present to users in their results. Yes, tweets do appear in search results but less than blog posts, and also with a strange sort of randomness.

Also, a blog gives you your own place on the web. The content you create on facebook or twitter helps prop up those networks. The content you create on your blog helps prop up your own place on the web.

So don’t bury blogging yet. It’s still the foundation of any online marketing activity you undertake, whether it’s SEO, PPC, email, or social media. It’s on your blog that you have a chance to convert users in whatever way you hope to do so.

In the meantime, we’re happy to answer your PayPal questions as best as we can so don’t let this post stop you from contacting us! And keep blogging!

Our previous posts about using PayPal in Israel:

• Everything you wanted to know about paypal and the Israeli Shekel
• How paypal really works for Israelis and shekels

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Why blog

Why Start a Blog and 25 Tips to Make it Work, Conversation Agent, Nov. 6, 2008

iMedia Connection: Five Reasons to Blog

Social Media still on rise: Comparative global study

Blogging tips

Blogging Tips for Beginners from Problogger

Blogging Tips from Lorelle VanFossen

Twenty Usability Tips for Your Blog — Condensed from Dozens of Bloggers’ Experiences

The Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide, Dean Rieck, CopyBlogger

You Need a Blog Strategy, Darren Rowse, Problogger, Dec. 10, 2008

Social Media Tips

Let’s talk: Social Media for Small Business – e-book from Microsoft (who would’ve thought)

If I Started Today, Chris Brogan, Nov. 22, 2008 – Chris Brogan gives advice on how he would start a social media strategy from scratch

The Ultimate Social Media Etiquette Handbook, Tamar Weinberg, Techipedia, Dec. 10, 2008

Combining blogging with social media

Your Social Media Strategy Starts with Monitoring, Marketing Profs – before you dive into social media, you must monitor it first.

How to Develop a Social Media Plan for Your Business in 5 Steps, Mashable – Great 5 step guide to getting your business into social media

How to Leverage Web 2.0 & Social Media Sites to Market Your Brand & Control Your Message, SEOmoz – a business-minded look at thirty sites whose content fits the Web 2.0 description

The Essential Guide to Social Media (PDF)

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The Israeli chapter of Digital Eve consists of a very active and professional email list with about 1500 subscribers. People use the list to get advice, find new employees and suppliers, and promote themselves and their own businesses. The list is moderated to maintain a high level of professional dialogue, and as a result it has become a favorite among the general Israeli business community, with many men joining as well and becoming proud “Devas,” as the group members are called.

Jacob Share from JobMob is one of those honorary male Devas, and he likes Digital Eve so much that he calls it “The best English mailing list in Israel for professionals.” Since a particular focus of the Digital Eve Israel chapter is the hi-tech industry, the topic of blogs and social media marketing have come up repeatedly on the list. As a service to the list members and even those not on the list, Jacob has put together a list of Digital Eve bloggers. It’s in a nice graphic format with screenshots of each blog displayed, and little icon links to the bloggers’ various social media profiles.

This list an interesting insight into the Israeli business blogging world. It’s worth checking out. And if you’re not yet a member of Digital Eve, I suggest you join now (go to the Digital Eve Israel website, and click on the big red button in the middle column that says Join Now).

Digital Eve Israel’s Bloggers

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I met some inspiring and fantastic women there, and learned about some interesting technologies. It is certainly motivating to see that success is possible for women in the Israeli hi-tech industry.

Here is the presentation that I gave at the meeting on the topic of Blogs and SEO – Why blogs are so great for SEO. Enjoy!

| View | Upload your own

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Privacy by doc18

This week Emily Gould, former Editor at the mega-gossip-blog Gawker, published a stunning and moving description in the New York Times of her experience as a blogger who exposed all, both with regards to her own personal life, and those of celebrities. Her piece is fascinating and disturbing, and raises a lot of questions about the boundaries we set up and break down between our real-life identities, and those of our online personas.

One of the questions that I’m often asked about blogging is about how far bloggers should go in exposing their private lives. This aspect of blogging makes people nervous, since blogging is obviously a very personal endeavor, with people exposing their personal experiences, opinions and agendas.

In addition, many bloggers have seen that posts relating more detailed personal information are often more successful and engaging than those that just relate their opinions. So the question becomes: do I have to write about my personal life in order to succeed as a blogger?

You need to be public. And private.

In my opinion, the answer is yes and no. If you are blogging for professional purposes, it is very important that you stick with the main topic of your blog, and not deviate with whole posts dedicated to your dog’s antics or your spouse’s new haircut. People are reading your blog because they perceive you as an expert in your field, and they want to learn from your wisdom in that area. By writing about subjects unrelated to your main topic, you’ll make your readers wonder if it’s worth their while reading your blog post when there are five gazillion others out there that won’t waste their time.

Also, as we all know, exposing too much can actually be dangerous. There are unsavory creatures prowling the web, looking for juicy personal tidbits that they can use to harm you, whether it’s by stealing your identity, stalking you until you are too afraid to even leave your house, or in other unpleasant ways.

At the same time,you must be personal (and personable) when blogging. Personality is the main difference between conventional journalism, which is supposedly objective or, in the case of opinion pieces, sophisticated and controlled, and blogging, which is emotional, temperamental, and highly subjective – and way more fun to read!

Striking the balance

Here are three tips to help you maintain that balance between publicity and privacy:

• Make sure to use the word “I” when writing as much as possible.
• Stay focused on the topic of your blog. Remember that your readers are there to hear your words of wisdom, and that should keep you on course.
• And most of all: if you wouldn’t want your friends, parents or coworkers to read it, don’t put it on the web! There’s this company called Google that works hard to expose your web content.

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I’m excited to announce the launch of a new course I’m giving on blogging and social media marketing strategies.

About the course

The new web, also known as web 2.0, is changing the way we communicate. With people spending more and more time online as active participants in the consumption and generation of content, companies and brands who wish to engage with online customers must adopt a new way of thinking.

“Corporate Blogging and Social Media” is a 3-day seminar that will take place on Thursday June 5, June 12, and June 19, 2008. During the course, you’ll gain a solid background in blogging and social media, start your own blog and write and optimize your first post for social media and search engines. We’ll also cover the following:

• How an effective blogging strategy can be an amazing way to market your brand and/or company
• How to set up and promote a blog with the various social media tools available
• Creating and monitoring an online social media profile that delivers results.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) basics for better blogging
• Digital PR/PR 2.0 – moving beyond the conventional press release to the Social Media Press Release

Where and what?

The courses will take place at Beit Shmuel in Jerusalem, conveniently located off of King David Street, near the David Citadel Hotel. Each day will begin at 9 am, and continue until 6 pm, with short breaks and a lunch break. Participants will receive printed material as well as access to a password protected part resource section on the illuminea site. Refreshments and a dairy lunch are included in the cost.

Find out more about the course, and see the agenda, click here

For more information, please contact us at info@illuminea.com, or at (02) 566-0297.

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We at illuminea try to encourage our clients to incorporate blogs into their websites since, in our opinion (and in the opinion of many others), the typical corporate website is not as effective as it could be. With content that rarely changes, and little to no engagement with clients and potential clients, traditional corporate websites are little more than online brochures, and do not utilize the power of the medium on which it sits: the web.

Jeremiah Owyang, a Web Strategist with Forrester, wrote a great article on the topic called “The Irrelevant Corporate Website,” explaining why the typical corporate website is increasingly irrelevant in today’s age of fresh new content and cooperation with consumers.

The article was so groundbreaking that it’s been translated into many languages, most recently Hebrew. Omer Rosen did the translation.

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Commtouch, one of the world’s leading email spam fighters, has now officially launched their new corporate blog, Commtouch Cafe, which was built by none other than…illuminea (i.e. us)!

Founded in 1991 in Israel and publicly traded on the NASDAQ (CTCH), Commtouch’s technologies help companies avoid the rising costs of email spam by constantly monitoring, identifying and blocking new malware attacks. To accomplish this, the company analyzes the distribution patterns of billions of email messages per month. That’s quite a job.

The new blog, called Commtouch Cafe, aims to “show the face & voice of the people behind Commtouch’s technology; share the type of informal information that [they] are exposed to daily just wandering the halls here, that might also interest our partner community or other spam/virus fighters; and have some fun.” This blog is the place to go if you want to keep up on the latest reports, figures and developments in the world of spam and malware.

Now I know they are my clients, so you probably should take what I have to say with a grain of salt, but this move by Commtouch into the world of social media marketing is very impressive for the following reasons:

• Commtouch is publicly traded. Many publicly traded companies cite the complicated compliance issues of stock exchanges as reasons not to have a blog. Commtouch saw the value of becoming part of the online conversation, and overcame any obstacles that they may have faced in order to do this.
• They also launched with a new viral video. Not only did Commtouch launch a blog, but they combined it with the launch of a cute animated video they made that is now on YouTube. (The video is below.)
• The content is written with a web audience in mind. Big corporations often speak in long expanses of corporate speak. The posts on Commtouch Cafe are short and contain a lot of visuals, like video and images.
• They are an Israeli company. Big Israeli companies in particular are still staying away from blogging. A notable exception is Answers.com, a large publicly traded company with an obscure and hard-to-find corporate blog (if you look up Answers.com blog, you won’t find it): no.stupid.answers. This blog is also pretty good – short, useful posts about questions and answers.

Congratulations to Commtouch on their entry into the world of social media, and may this signal the start of a new trend among Israeli companies!

Here’s the Commtouch video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnD50mSvLPk[/youtube]

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More and more professionals are starting their own blogs. There is a growing realization that blogging can help advance a person professionally, or market a business. It helps establish them as thought leaders, create relationships with people they wouldn’t normally connect to, and increase search engine rankings for their corporate sites.

But it’s hard to know where to start. Here are some tips that can help you start off on the right foot, so that you can grow as a blogger and head in the direction of becoming a “really professional blogger” (RPB):

1. Really professional bloggers have self-hosted blogs. A self-hosted blog is a blog that is hosted on a person’s own hosting account, as opposed to a blog that is hosted for free on WordPress.com or Google’s Blogger. To self-host your own blog, you need to install one of the blogging platforms on your hosting. This means an investment of about $10 a year for a domain name, and about $8 a month for hosting. So when I say investing, we’re not talking thousands. But it shows that they’re taking their blogging seriously. This also means that they are not at the mercy of WordPress.com and Google’s Terms of Service, and they also avoid the risk of being blocked in certain countries that block entire social networks like WordPress.com.
2. Really professional bloggers have their own domain name. This means that the domain name of their blog is not something like miriam.blogspot.com, but is www.miriam.com, or www.company.com/blog. If the idea of hosting your own blog makes you nervous, but you do want to have your own domain name, sign up for a blog at www.wordpress.com, and then upgrade to their paid service that allows you to have your own domain name. This will also make it easier for you to move to your own self-hosted blog with that domain name in the future. (We just did that for a client and the move went really smoothly. All their URLs were preserved.) But just note that people will still know that you are using the WordPress.com hosted blogging service because their favicon appears next to your URL in browsers. That just means you can’t personalize your favicon, but it’s not the end of the world.
3. Really professional bloggers use WordPress as their blogging platform of choice. Some may argue with me, but many if not most of the leading bloggers (except Seth, maybe) use WordPress for their blogs. Bloggers love WordPress because: 1. It has a large user community; 2. It is really flexible and many cool and wonderful things can be done with WordPress; 3. It is pretty optimized for search engines out of the box, and can be optimized even more by WordPress designers and developers. If you don’t want to invest right now in your blog, and you’re just getting your feet wet, it’s a good idea to get started with a free blog at WordPress.com. This gives you a few advantages: 1. You can easily migrate (move) your blog over to a self-hosted WordPress blog when you feel ready; 2. You will be used to the WordPress user interface and features, since the admin is basically the same for the hosted and self-hosted versions of WordPress; 3. You look much savvier than a blogspot blogger. (Ok, that’s very subjective, but at least I’ll think you’re cooler!)
4. Really professional bloggers have customized blog designs. This is a serious investment in your blogging career, but in a world of millions of blogs, it’s important to find a way to differentiate yourself and show people you are serious about what you are doing. But you don’t have to worry about that right now – WordPress makes it easy to change your blog’s appearance at any time. It’s like putting a different dress on your content: the content all stays the same, but it’s now wearing its fall wardrobe.

So if you’ve been bitten by the blogging bug, and want to get started on the right foot, I think the above tips can help you start a blogging career that lets your blog grow with you, and vice versa.

Happy blogging!

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The Oct. 30 meeting of the Yokneam Forum of Technical Writers (Elephant) will feature a workshop on “Using Blogging as a Marketing Tool“. Meetings of the Forum are free and open to the public (most are technical or marcom writers, but others are welcome). The standard for presentations and workshops at the Forum is very high because many of the participants come to meetings with a lot of technical and practical experience. The informal atmosphere leads to a discussion format rather than frontal presentations. Meetings always begin with AA style introductions and announcements. Networking is always an important part of the meetings, especially at the start and during breaks.

Location: Yokneam City Hall

Date: Oct. 30

Time: 18:00-19:15

Cost: Free, but you are expected to bring a refreshment to share (New England style potluck) and registration is required

Registration: www.elephant.org.il/headlines/oct_30_workshop_on_using_blogging_as_a_m.html

Join us to learn how blogs can help you take your company’s marketing to the next level. We will cover:

• What makes a blog a blog?
• What are all these things we’ve heard about: RSS feeds, trackbacks, pingbacks?
• What system should we use to blog: we’ll look at blogger, typepad, wordpress.com and self-hosted WordPress.
• How blogs benefit your business: increase search engine rankings, control your online brand, strengthen customer loyalty, and more.
• Blog writing strategies: how often should we post, what should we write about, how long do the posts need to be, how do we find new material?

I know Yokneam isn’t the most convenient location, but it’s not impossible, so I really hope I’ll see you there!

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Last night I went to my first iDrink event. For those of you who are not familiar with iDrink, it’s a party/event for Israelis in the Internet and web industries. The format usually includes presentations by startups and sponsors of the event, some free drinks, and a lot of socializing and networking. This was their seventh event, and there were tons of people there. At first, we couldn’t even get into the bar, and people were literally spilling out the door. But that was ok, cuz even the door was a social place to be. We got inside in time to hear/see the end of a presentation by a startup called KitchenBug. It was so noisy that I couldn’t hear so well, but what I saw and heard made me a little worried: a pretty presentation with really cool shiny graphics, and a concept that I think has little value (sorry KitchenBug and investors). This screams “bubble” – pretty face, no content, investors investing. Yikes.

Aside from that, I actually had fun. Despite the fact that I was the only religious woman who looked like she stepped out of Biblical times, I met some interesting people and got an in-depth explanation of a new blogging-widget being developed by one of the startups (sorry, but that one also has signs of a bubble).

So what do you think it’s like to get into a room with a bunch of web fanatics? Well, upon meeting you they immediately take out their phone and “friend” you on facebook. I’m serious. Also, I had more than one person come up to me and say hi because they recognized me from facebook. I’m surprised no one was live-blogging.

The line between real and virtual life has become very thin.

Anyways, it was an experience. Kol hakavod to the organizers – it’s really great that they provide a setting for everyone in the industry to get together in a casual atmosphere. In a bar, it’s so easy to be friends, especially after a few drinks.

Maybe real life isn’t that different from facebook after all:

• Real life – drink, be friends
• facebook – “friend me,” we’re friends

And in that spirit, Demetri Maritin on the Daily Show gives his point of view on social networking:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpcvR1tIBfQ[/youtube]

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Yes, we’ve revamped our website, and it’s about time! If you’re reading this in a feed reader, come on over and check it out.

Our old site was divided into two parts: one part was a static site built on old-fashioned HTML, and the second part was the blog, sitting separately on WordPress.

There were a few problems with that setup:

1. Updating the static site was not fun, especially if we needed to update elements that were repeated across the site, like the navigation bar, or the footer.
2. The blog should have been tied into the site for better search engine results.
3. The blog was sitting on a really old version of WordPress.

It was the old story of the shoemaker going barefoot – how can I recommend to clients to integrate their blogs with their websites for better web exposure, and not do so myself?

WordCamp Israel was the final push – if I’m going to be on the business panel at a WordPress conference, my business had better be oozing WordPress.

Having a new site has actually inspired me to pick up the pace on my blogging. It’s kind of like getting a new toy (i.e. laptop, PDA) which encourages you to become more productive.

I hope you like the site, and feedback is welcome. I know there are some quirks that need to be worked out, plus a lot of content is still missing, but we’ll get there!

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WordCamp Israel is fast approaching, and I wanted to update you on what’s going on.

First of all, the registration closed a little over a week ago – capacity has been reached. I know there are a lot of disappointed people who really wanted to come, but hopefully it will either work out for them this year, or they’ll manage to register in time for next year’s conference.

Second, I’m going to be moderating the panel on Blogging and Business. We have a really great panel, and I hope it will be enjoyable and informative. Here’s a bit about our panelists:

• Me. My company, illuminea provides blog development and strategic consultation services to businesses.
• Ouriel Ohayon. Ouriel is the General Manager at LGiLab, a VC company, and he blogs on VCs, business, startups, and more. His blog has a very wide following.
• Yigal Chamish. Yigal is an expert in knowledge management, and approaches blogs as a tools for creating effective learning and knowledge-sharing environments.
• Kfir Pravda. Kfir produces magazines and video for the Web, and works with companies and groups both locally and internationally to help them use blogs as business and marketing tools.
• Yisrael Blechman. Yisrael is the CTO of Blink, which specializes in research, development and application of Web 2.0 methodologies and technologies for both intra- and extra-organizational purposes.

Third, Lorelle has written a few posts in preparation of the upcoming conference that provide an interesting perspective on blogging and Israel:

• Lorelle on blogging and Israel – Lorelle wrote this post specially for the WordCamp Israel English blog. It talks about blogging, and Lorelle’s past experiences in Israel.
• WordCamp Israel October 25 with Lorelle – Lorelle writes about the conference and Israeli society on Lorelle on WordPress.com.
• WordCamp Israel: Exploring Israeli Bloggers – This post was published on the Blog Herald, and takes a look at some of Israel’s most interesting or popular bloggers.

That’s it for now, and I hope I’ll see you there! Remember: Oct. 25, at 9am at Michlelet Afeka in Tel Aviv.

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