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Steps to Add A YouTube Video to Your Wordpress Blog

Have you ever wanted to include a YouTube Video on your Wordpress Blog? I’ll explain how easy it is to do. Have you seen some of the great book trailers that have been uploaded to YouTube? We’re going to use one by author Sydney Croft in our explanation of how to add a YouTube Video to your Wordpress post.

Go to YouTube and find the video you want to include in your post.

Highlight the text in the box to the right of the video, where it says embed. Copy the highlighted code.

Go back to the post you are writing in the Wordpress admin panel.

Make sure your tab on the write post page is set to Code

Paste in the code where you want it to appear in your post. Save the post. You’re finished.

If you have any problems with a specific browser & operating system:
1)Go to your admin panel on Wordpress.
2)Click on Users
3)Click on edit by by your user name
4)On the page it brings up, uncheck Use Visual Editor in the upper left corner
5)Click on Update User

Now try adding the video to your blog.

To see another embedded video on a Wordpress blog, I have the trailer to the new Sex in the City movie in my post on WineontheKeyboard.

Here are some links to other book trailers on YouTube to give you an idea of what authors are doing with their book trailers:
Merline Lovelace — Stranded with a Spy (she said she made it with iMovie on her Mac)

Marianne Arkins — Don’t Fence Me In (she has it embedded on her blog)

Deborah Smith’s — A Gentle Rain (some great photos in this one)

Diana Duncan — Lethal Attraction (she has it on the front page of her website)

Warning on Embedding YouTube Videos on Your Wordpress Blog

Heads up…if your content section of your Wordpress theme is too narrow, adding a YouTube video to your Wordpress blog post will break the theme and mess up your page layout.

Tags: How to Blog, Marketing, Wordpress by Kacey
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The Writer’s Blog Workshop Series Lessons: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9

Lesson Nine:

So you’ve got a blog.  You’ve got a purpose and an audience in mind, strategies for developing regular material, and maybe you’re even starting to think about creating a snazzy new design.  But how do you attract more readers?

Most bloggers start with a small audience.  Patience is key in building a blog.  Don’t give up!  Here is a list of ways to promote your blog, for little or no money. [Read more →]

Tags: Series Articles, The Writer's Blog Workshop by Suzanne McMinn
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A visit to Writeminded is like a lunch out with your friends, a slumber party with the girls, and a drink at the bar at an RWA conference, all rolled together.  Writeminded is a group blog.  A group blog has multiple authors who each write posts on scheduled days.  The authors behind Writeminded are Stephanie Tyler, Amy Knupp, Larissa Ione, Jaci Burton, and Sharon Long/Maya Banks.  The benefits of group blogging are tempting–you don’t have to be responsible for keeping the blog active on a daily basis.  (Many bloggers participate in both a group blog and their own blog, thereby increasing their visibility and sharing traffic between sites.)  There are great group blogs….and not so great group blogs.  Unfortunately, some group blogs leave the impression they’ve been thrown together with little investment, either in time or money, and the postings can be erratic both in schedule and tone, leaving visitors not sure what they’re going to get on any given day…..and just as likely to not bother coming back at all.

Writeminded was one of the first group writer blogs, and remains a standard-bearer today.  The faces behind Writeminded change periodically, but the blog’s style and downright delicious fun remains.  It is, always, like sitting down to one big giant bowl of ice cream.

What makes Writeminded work? [Read more →]

Tags: Spotlight by Suzanne McMinn
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Blog post titles are your first–and sometimes only–chance to grab a reader and get them to click on a link to your site. Post titles should be attention getting. Effective. Lure the reader in. Motivate them to click on the link and/or read the post. Finding the right title will attract readers to your blog.

This is how your post titles show up on a Google search page. See these first two posts on “How to Write a Book”. Both of them have good, attention getting post titles.

Google a topic that interests you. See what the titles are. Which ones call to you to click on them and read the website. Skim through your RSS Feed Reader. What post titles catch your attention and entice you to read the full post? Read the cover of some magazines. Which titles of articles make you want to open the magazine and read the article. Learn to write post titles that get the reader’s attention. Here are some tips: [Read more →]

Tags: How to Blog by Kacey
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The Writer’s Blog Workshop Series Lessons: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8

Lesson Eight:

Choosing a blogging platform can be mind-dizzying. Blogging platforms are everywhere. I’m going to provide a list of recommended platforms, as well as a short list of some of the most popular blogging platforms I don’t recommend. All of these platforms are free to download and install (including the recommended ones), or if you prefer you may have a web designer help you with customization.

I’ve used WordPress, Movable Type, and Typepad extensively, and have dabbled briefly in Blogger, Bravejournal, and Livejournal. WordPress is far and away the best weblog software available. It’s free to download directly into your own website, with your own domain. It comes with great built-in features such as categories, blogrolls, preview, etc, and is highly customizable through plugins and template editors. It supports deeply functional options for comments, calendar, trackbacks, searches, content syndication, and importing from other platforms. Password-protection is available for selected entries, and it has extensions/plugins for photos, podcasting, video blogging, and more. It’s a powerful, easy-to-use, professional blogging platform.

Movable Type, Typepad, and Expression Engine offer many of the same features as WordPress. Find out more about them by visiting each platform’s website.

Recommended Platforms:

WordPress

Expression Engine

Movable Type

Typepad

Blogger is the most popular full-service (site hosting) blog platform around and is great for a beginning blogger just getting to know whether or not blogging is for them. Due to lack of deep customization and functionality options, it falls far short of what is available in a platform such as WordPress, and even with a custom design, the Blogger banner runs across the top–diminishing professional appearance and style. I don’t recommend any of these platforms for longterm, professional blogging purposes.

Blogging Platforms Not Recommended:

Blogger

Livejournal

Bravejournal

Choose a blogging platform carefully. Invest in design, customization, and installation of a professional blog for longterm functionality and style.  You, too, can blog like a pro.  Convinced yet?  Check out this article on how to choose a WordPress theme and get started!

The Writer’s Blog Workshop Series Lessons: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 -7- 8

Tags: How to Blog, Series Articles, The Writer's Blog Workshop by Suzanne McMinn
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