MY DEAD SEA / MASADA EXPERIENCE

My family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all came to a long weekend at the Dead Sea (Israel) to celebrate my cousin's Bat Mitzva. Some flew all the way from the New York area. Luckily, I only had to suffer of a two hour drive. I had a great time and decided to write about my experience.

FRIDAY

Most of us left at around 13:00 and rented a bus to take whoever was going there, from Tel Aviv (where I live) to the hotel. Since I had school and other appointments, my brother, stepdad and I only left at 15:00, and we got there around 17:30. 

The drive was beautiful. Even though we only drove for two and a half hours, the view and the sites we saw kept changing (big cities, farms, desert, etc.). 

We had some free time in our hotel until dinner. Since some of my cousins are very religious, we said some prayers before we started eating. After dinner, we (my siblings and non-religious cousin) went back to our room and watched Bob's Burgers on Netflix (very recommended), until we went to sleep.

SATURDAY 

On Saturday, we woke up early and went on Jeep tour around the area, and had a great time. If you have me on Snapchat (@zoeeozstar) you've probably seen my brothers and I making jokes and having fun.

We got back just in time for lunch. Since it was Saturday, none of the restaurants were open, so we ended up eating at McDonalds. We made fun of ourselves because we stayed at such a fancy hotel and ate food from McDonalds - who does that?!

Later on that day my mom and I went to a 'salt pool' in the hotel, that was like a heated version of the Dead Sea. It felt so good and calming! Since it was only open to people over the age of 16, there were no little annoying kids running around splashing and peeing in the water. It was very nice.

SUNDAY

Two of my brothers (Ido - 15, Iftach - 12) and I went to the pool and the Dead Sea. Later on, Iftach left us and Ido and I went to the salt pool and Jacuzzi (I didn't know it was spelled like that until now, it's so fancy and French).

Anyway, we took showers and left to a Bedouin village and learned about their way of living. We ate dinner there and it was amazing - SO MUCH FOOD.

Mine: Dress - H&M (similar)

His: Shirt, Shoes (both on sale)

MONDAY

Finally, the day of the Bat Mitzva. It was a busy day. 

6:00 - wake up, getting ready, dressing up, makeup

7:00 - breakfast

8:00 - we hired photographers who took photos of us in the morning and during that whole day.

8:40 - leaving for Masada

9:00 - we get there, take some more pictures

9:20 - more cousins come, they were late and it was annoying. We went on a cable railway that took us to the top of the mountain. There is also an option to hike up, but we were all wearing fancy dresses and shoes. Not a great idea.

9:40 - the service starts. My cousin lead the prayers and read from the Torah for the first time, very exciting! At the end, we threw candy at her (Jewish tradition).

11:00 - we had another activity where we made Chalas (special kind of Jewish bread, usually eaten Friday night).

13:00 - got back to the hotel. Packed up quickly and had a big lunch (they make a big meal - almost like a banquet - for people's last meals there). We ate SO MUCH! The food was so good, we asked them to pack it up for us (there was so much of it, we'd never be able to finish it)

15:00 - bus left from the hotel 

18:30 - My grandparents and I went with my cousin (the Bat Mitzva girl) and aunt back to their hotel in Herzliya. We walked around the Marina (port) until about 20:30 and drank hot chocolate. Then my grandparents (who are staying in my house) went back home.

The hotel also had a spa (that costs extra money) and a gym that I never got to try. This is the hotel and I recommend it a lot. This post isn't sponsored and I genuinly really liked the hotel.

Have you ever been to Israel / the Dead Sea? Tell me about your experiene! 

Made in the AM || OOTD

One Directions new album, Made in the AM is SO GOOD. It's been almost two weeks since its release and I still haven't stopped listening to it. my favorite songs are currently If I Could Fly and Long Way Down, but I love all of them. 

Have you listened to the album? Which are your favorite songs?

RELAUNCHING

Since May, I have been abandoning my blog. I don't know why, really. I knew I'd be away for the summer and I even created a form for guest bloggers to apply for guest posts. I never even looked if anyone applied. I'm so sorry and I feel so bad.

It's really a shame that I stopped blogging, I missed it. Looking back at my (old) blogging email, I've realized I missed out on quite a few opportunities. But that's okay, I've made great memories during the summer.

But I really have missed this. That's why I'm back. Hopefully, this blog will be less cringe-worthy. I'm so happy to be back.

This blog is going to be more focused on wearing things that make you feel confident and doing things that will make you feel better about yourself because I know we all suffer from a low self-esteem - at least every once in a while.

How to Come Up With New Blog Post Ideas

Follow my blog with Bloglovin Even though I've been on an on & off writers block, I still managed to post almost the same way I did before. So I decided to tell you my secret on how I find topics that I actually feel like writing. It might be quite obvious to some of you but, keeping lists is the best way to remember things.

I keep my 'blog posts to write' list on my phone since I always have it on me, whenever I have a new idea I just write it down. I also always read 'blog post idea' posts, because even though there might be a list of 50 post names, only a couple will fit my blog.

Whenever I feel like writing a post, but don't know what to write about I take a look at my list - I always find something that fits my mood or gives me inspiration for a similar post

If you feel like you really don't have anything to write about but still want to post, you can make a wish list, do a Q&A or make a list (example: books I want to read), etc.

How do you come up with blog post ideas?

Zoe xx


Image source

Books I Want To Read

These books are either fiction, about feminism or about blogging. Please let me know if you read any of these and what you thought - especially if any of them are not recommended (I've heard of most of them through blogs so I'd love to hear what you thought too)!

#GIRLBOSS // Sophia Amoruso

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be // Paul Arden

Not That Kind Of Girl // Lena Dunham 

Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite // Paul Arden

Get Rich Blogging // Zoe Griffin 

Yes Please // Amy Phoeler

Picture Perfect Social Media // Jennifer Young

Blogging For Creatives // Robin Houghton

Blog Inc. // Joy Deangdeelert Cho

To All The Boys I've Loved Before // Jenny Han

The Art Of Pretending to be A Grownup // Grace Helbig

How to be A Woman // Caitlin Moran

Zoe xx

Image source

Simple SEO For Beginners

During a #everyblogger Twitter chat a few weeks back, I realized how confusing SEO is for some bloggers, and while I explained it (partially, in 140 characters), a lot of bloggers remained very confused after the chat and asked me to write a post explaining SEO in depth. So here are the basics - let's go!

First of all, what exactly is SEO?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization and it's basically the order the search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.) show the posts / articles when searching for something. For example, if you search 'what is SEO', the first result on Google will be  searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-seo. I will mention some of the things the writer of that post did that you can too, to hopefully get your posts to the top, and what I did to the link to make it easier for anyone to pass them and be first (selfish much? probably). 

Key Words - Let's imagine the next situation together: you're trying to figure out what SEO is, so you open Google and search 'what is SEO'. Google will show you (the post above) by Search Engine Land because the words What and SEO probably repeat themselves a lot (without being spam-y, be careful with that). The biggest tip I could give you to improve your SEO is to include keywords in your post, first paragraph, title and headings ('mini titles').

Title - what do you think readers will search when looking for an article like yours? If you're writing a post explaining what SEO is - and dedicating your full blog post to that, call it What is SEO (that's what Search Engine Land did). Or, if it's easier for you to think this way, think of what you'd search to find the post you're looking for. If you're using Wordpress, there is a plugin that allows you to have the title on your website and on search engines look different (can't remember what it's called though).

Permalink - if you use Blogger, you'll automatically have a 'pretty' permalink for your post although you can still change it on the Post Settings sidebar (right) while writing/editing a post and then clicking Permalink. You will be able to edit your permalink on any platform you use.
   Permalinks should include your keywords/what readers might be looking for and be easy to remember, for example: use something like /guide/what-is-seo instead of /post/rgt784gtw47.
   When I mentioned earlier about 'passing' people on search engines, here's what I meant. When you link to someone on Blogger you can click the add 'rel=nofollow' attribute, which means the post you link to won't gain any 'popularity' points on search engines (the more people who link to the website the higher their 'popularity' is, and the higher they'll show on search engines - more details below). If you don't have blogger, add rel="nofollow" after the link (we're talking in HTML, of course), here's an example, you can copy paste it and change the highlighted link to whatever you'd like, if you want: 

<a href="http://zoessecretstyle.blogspot.co.il" rel="nofollow"

Photos - there are two rules you should be following when it comes to blog photos. The first, name your pictures. I may be looking for a banner that tells me what SEO is, or something like this, which is a more visual way to understand. The photo will mostly make sense by the end of the post, I'll cover the rest when I write a continuing post to this one.

I found this picture on the top row of Google Images by searching 'what's SEO'. When I downloaded the photo to my computer, I saw it was named seo.png, which has nothing wrong with it - actually, it's almost perfect. 
    Similar to the permalink concept, no one will search for 'image fg8fw478' when searching for images (to add to their blog posts, for example). Put something usable in your image name. After downloading the photo, I changed it's name to 'simple SEO for beginners Zoe's secret style', because there are two things potential readers might be looking for:

1. a post on simple SEO for bloggers, which is why I wrote the first part.
2. or, they're looking for images from my blog, Zoe's Secret Style, which is why I include my blog name in my image name so they are more likely to click on the post, and drive traffic to this specific post.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about photos is not to use them at the top of your posts, but after the first paragraph, at least. Search engines have a preference for text, so if you have some text before your photos you will probably be rated lower, which brings your whole posts 'popularity' down.

Link back - the more links you get back to your site, the higher ranking your post will get. Think about it this way, the more positive reviews you read about a product, the more you'd like to buy it, right? I have only recently realized this and need to do this more myself, but when you tweet about a new post - don't tweet the link to your blog, but to the post itself! 
   For example, instead of me tweeting 'Need help figuring out SEO? I found help at ZoesSecretStyle.blogspot.co.il'. I used to make this mistake when linking to my recent post. This won't help you at all - don't do it! Here is what I should've tweeted this whole time, and you can too by clicking the link.

Need help to figure out SEO? I found help at http://zoessecretstyle.blogspot.com/2015/03/simple-seo-for-beginners.html 

Of course, you can also use shortened links (such as bit.ly, or you can buy your own shortened custom domain from wherever your regular domain is from. The biggest advantage is that you can fit more in your tweets!

Google+ - has a ton of impact on a posts SEO. I am planning another post to elaborate on Google+ SEO alone, but just remember your ranking on Google will appear higher too, and often to whoever has your followers in their circles! Follow my Google+ traffic tips to learn more about increasing your traffic from the quite unpopular social media platform no one seems to like, with minimal effort.

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I hope this post helped! Please let me know if you'd like me to write more posts on this subject, and if you have any tips you want to share in the comments!

Zoe xx


Image 1, Image 2

Full Skin Care Routine

First of all, let me state that days where I complete this whole routine are pretty rare. My skin is usually pretty nice to me and I don't get too many spots. I have a combination skin, although that changes from time to time.

A.M.
Since I never have time to do anything most mornings, all I do is moisturize. I'm currently using Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel, which you can read my review of in my March Favorites. I don't normally wear makeup either.

P.M.
1) If I wore makeup that day (which only happens once/twice a week), I'll start with the Garnier Micellar Cleansing Water (review here) to remove my makeup and refresh my skin a bit.

2) Then, I'll wash my face with the Garnier Wasabi Pure Active face wash, which, isn't as harsh as it sounds. It's smell is very refreshing, although a friend of mine who's accidentally tasted it said it tastes like wasabi. I also accidentally tasted it once, and it tasted like soap. Maybe this has to do with how long since it has come out of the bottle? I don't know.

3) Once every week or two, I'll also use this Careline Purifying Mask. It's amazing and I love it. Careline is an Israeli brand, and I'm not sure of it's availability abroad.

4) Lastly, if I have any big spots, I'll use my Dream Dots. I just ran out, I need to order some more!


And that's it: my full skin care routine! Just to clarify this again, I do not usually use all of these products each day. Depending on my mood, I'll choose which ones I'll use that day.

Are any of these in your skin care routine? What do you think of them?

Zoe xx