Alisha Balushi

The digital era has transformed global business needs and many PR agencies have been forced to dust off their cobwebs and adapt to the complicated world of online content. So is traditional PR still relevant I hear you cry? The short answer is yes! Getting your story heard in the digital age may seem daunting but the same rules still apply; good old-fashioned PR and the practices that made it so effective in the first place still at the very core of it all. Understanding exactly what media and messaging an audience wants to engage with is what matters most and all you really need to do is give things a digital twist to ensure your message is actually heard. But doesn’t PR cost a lot of money? The good news is that PR doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.  You don’t need to appoint a flashy high-priced agency that delights in racking up big bills and bombarding journalists with countless emails that will probably go straight to spam. Here are five tips to get you started. 1-...

The UAE’s luxury hotel market has enjoyed strong growth over the past few years and the demand for luxury tourism is steadily increasing. And what is one of the biggest drivers of this growth? Well it’s really a question of what, it’s a question of who; the Chinese. Every year, the UAE attracts more than 15 million tourists spending almost $20billion (almost AED 75bn). This year, around 154 million of those travelers are expected to be Chinese tourists and in 2022 that number is predicted to rise to 244 million. GCC countries combined are currently believed to attract almost two per cent of China's total outbound tourism market, and are expected to host a total of 2.5 million visitors per year by 2021. With the surge in inbound tourism from China, luxury hotel brands in particular, have had to evolve and adapt to consumer shifts and competitive pressures. The affluent Chinese consumer segment is becoming increasingly diverse and their expectations set the bar for luxury hotels ...

Audience research is considered as an imperative aspect of targeting the specific audience. You cannot have any insights about the search patterns of target audience unless you analyze the data and gather the relevant information. Knowing about your audience’s search intent can get you immense benefits of high visibility and enhanced chances of acquiring more clicks. What actually is search intent? It shows the search goal a user wants to achieve. There are various reasons of why the users do a certain query, it may be due to gaining some information, open any website or want to know about a free resource or a product. The span of its benefits expands to some major ‘bosses’ of the business strategy and these are SEO, PPC and content marketing. But the real question here is how it is incorporated in the planning and strategy development? Here is the answer. The three types of search intent: Navigational: In this category, the user directly wants to jump to a specific we...

Designers usually seem to strive hard to make the user experience better with minimal web designs and enhanced navigation. To teach the user for taking certain actions if you add two or three buttons below each image then the website will be more likely as mess which will be difficult to handle. Now the latest solution to this problem is gesture driven UI which has become popular in mobile applications. What is gesture driven UI? It is imperative to design the responsive websites which run seamlessly on varying screen sizes. The gesture UI enables the users to perform different actions like tap, swipe, drag and others to interact on the website with convenience. The purpose of gestures is to have a powerful control which feels intuitive and natural. The gestures are not visible to the users so you have to give a clue to the users or unless they will unaware of it. Watch for your requirements when design: There are various types of gestures as: Tap Double tap Swipe Slide ...

WordPress is beyond comparison for its convenience in use, simplicity, security and a lot of other features which help the user to create a unique and tailored website for the business. WordPress: A platform with thousands of themes and plugins: Your website cannot stand out until it has exclusive features and attention gaining design. An appealing website is the need of today and WordPress is giving the perfect opportunity to the businesses to make their online presence dominant and distinct in the market. If you see the WordPress plugin directory, thousands of plugins are available, sufficient to fulfil the needs of every business. Cost-effective in use: This open-source platform is free to use and supported by a large community of developers who come forward to provide the solutions for any possible problem. As a business, you are required to upgrade your plan but it is also cheap. It is a self-hosted platform so you can easily start using it after conversion and initiate b...

Garbage disposals are a fantastic instrument of ease in the kitchen. You know it can be a real time saver when it comes to cleaning up after a meal is finished by the guests. But only when you maintain it properly. In order to avoid creating a long-term plumbing problem, however, you will need to ensure that you treat your appliance with an appropriate care. The most common plumbing problem during the holidays is blamed on the garbage disposer. This is because when the drain line serving the kitchen sink is clogged, it backs up through the garbage disposer. Dos: These are the things you should follow in order to keep the garbage disposer up for a long time. Grind food waste with a strong flow of cold water. It is important as cold water will cause any grease or oils that could get into the unit to solidify. This way, they can be chopped up before they reach the trap. Grind certain hard materials including small chicken and fish bones, small fruit pits, and eggshells. These part...

Made from the paper, coffee filters are used as a sieving utensil for coffee brewing but we can see it used for a myriad of other purposes too. You can read many exceptional uses of the coffee filters which can save you from spending money on different stuff for which coffee filters could be the best alternative for. Great for glass cleaning: These easily available filters are tear resistant when coming in contact with the water. Therefore, it acts as a dust remover and glass cleaner for sparkling. Good for makeup touch-ups: Put some coffee filters in your bag and go confidently in any party. You can use these for sweat absorbing and makeup touch-ups. Incredible nail polish remover: Why go for cotton balls when you have coffee filters? These work best for removing the nail polish without any damage to your nails due to its softness. Excellent alternate of tea bags: Oh, forget the tea bags? Not even a problem! Just put some loose tea in the tea bag and tie it. Now your ...

Novel and distinct ways are applying to the websites nowadays to gain the focus of the target audience and trigger them to convert. Long scrolling is one of these trendy techniques. Below given are the five ways to make your long scrolling outstanding. 1- Insert the CTA for targeting the visitor’s interest: Well-positioned call to action let the people understand about the next step to be taken and help them find what they are looking for. CTAs can be added more than once in the parallel scrolling for the strong influence on the purchasing decisions. The first scroll should be impressive. When the visitors know about the basic information of what you are offering with the CTA within the first scroll, they are more likely to scroll further on the website. 2- Keep the flame of interest ignited: Strong visuals plus engaging and interesting content are the two fundamental and the basic elements which can create wonders for any type of website whether you own a clothing brand or r...

Is the website you intend to open takes more time? Ok, so you have tried more than once and still slow loading time? We face this issue many times while browsing on the internet and when finding these sort of lazy websites, we do not turn back to them? Right? The above mentioned could happen to you if you don’t provide your users with the best experience of the website visit. If you are using the WordPress then you should use WP cache plugin for a speed boost. A bit about WP Super Cache: This speed boosting and the user-friendly plugin works by creating the static HTML files from your dynamic blogs. These comparatively lightweight HTML files are served to the users and can be reused many times during the visit. In this way, the page loads faster and becomes convenient for the visitors. All the visitors of your website can view the site if they are not log in or those who do not left the comments. This is a free plugin and easy to use for the beginners. The first step is the in...

The fact is social media is vital for the businesses of all stages. In the digital world, we are heading towards a new direction of more interactive and novel ways of marketing and advertisement. These methods are fulfilling the customer’s expectation and help the brands to convert more audience into loyal customers. Social media sites have billions of audience: In 2017, the number of social media users was 2.4 billion which is expected to surpass 3 billion in the coming years. It has made it a powerful and attractive platform for the businesses to outreach new markets and keep the customers engaged in lasting relationships. Here are the 5 key points which will guide you about the social selling ways to grow your business. Craft amazing content for posts: There are varying types of content like text, video and others which effectively keep the audience engaged with your website. In the content, it is important to create honest, authentic and credible content. Videos can be ad...

Tricking the minds of people with colours and other psychological factors are old tactics used in marketing. From that time, these have been proved as working and that is the reason behind its use in today’s marketing domain. 1- Solve the problem of people and offer what they desire: Creating a sense of urgency does not mean that you just directly reach to the selling point with irrelevant products. As described above, scarcity and urgency are the tactics which are used by most of the marketers so your target audience is pretty much well aware of it. The only way to really attract and engage with the loyal audience is by offering them something which they really want. 2- The feeling of scarcity in the content: Not just the taglines show the urgency but the content tone should also depict it and urge the prospects to purchase. But you cannot just include the words of ‘buy now’ and other similar words rather you can craft an interesting and honest content which people like. It ...

Decide to rent your house or sell it? Few changes and upgrades can help you to earn more money. If your house is already in a good condition, making some modifications adds more value to your property. Here are four must-dos and without these, no house can be said as perfect to rent or sell and for high profit gains. Lights make the house look brighter: Light fixtures at smart places make the area look brighter, spacious and it enhances the overall look. LED lights are cost effective and are efficient in a long run. Lights reflect from the glass to the whole room creates an illusion of a big space. So clean your windows and glass doors which give the look of a newly constructed big house. Creating a connection of your exterior to the interior through big windows or patio doors allow the natural light to come in which mitigate the need of more lights in that area. Coat the interior and exterior with new paint: Resolving the small maintenance issues and fresh paint can make a s...

‘Content is a king’. You have heard this phrase a lot. It depicts the value of an interesting, engaging and useful content which can be of significant benefit for your business. As it’s so important, it is a must for you to have knowledge of crafting amazing and impressive content. Data Research: Different types of content can be added to your website. One of these should be research-based articles. It is a way of presenting the information in easy to read and understand way as most of the people do not like to study the articles that have complicated terms. You can craft a really valuable content by using the data of surveys, adding the words of experts or directly contact with the experts to collect data of a particular field. Fill the gap: Make some notes before start writing is a good practice. It allows you to recall or research all the necessary points which you think should be the part of the content. After finishing the content, take a brief look, focus on the proble...

In the digital realm, there are no limits. You can do whatever you desire by having sufficient knowledge, skills and resources to do that. Learning is a continual process and internet, the biggest source of information which will help you providing tons of data relevant to the digital area you are going to jump in. But really is it that easy? Can a web designer successfully run a business? Becoming the owner of a successful business is not a matter of few days or few months it takes years and years of hard work, passion, resilience and the ability to explore the opportunities. A web designer has the basic and fundamental knowledge of the web designs, current trends, layouts, expertise in coding, data analysis, and providing the best navigational experiences. But when you start your own business, you should have a hold on the basic knowledge in the areas of SEO, marketing and advertising, especially on social media platforms too. Founding a digital business is not a difficult tas...

With cluttered and heavy designs everywhere, open concept layouts offers a space to add creative visual elements and play with the inspiring designs. It supports the minimal designs which help in producing the stunning web designs. For an amazing navigational experience and keeping the website flow attractive for the user, these designs are brilliant and more useful for the pages which have a single call to action. In open layouts, striking colours, smart design and wise use of the white space can do wonders for your website.  Now in 2018, the open layout designs are in trend. Keep in mind that the navigation should be clear so that the user exactly understands what to do with it. Brightscout : It creates the flow in the diagonal way with the logo at the left and image in the lower right side. The colours are white and green which provides a prominent space for buttons, call to action and other elements. The whole page clearly shows what it meant for at the first glance. The ...

The change cannot be stopped especially in the digital realm. It is ever evolving and continues to lead the businesses towards better. Email marketing also undergoes several changes and the only way to become dominant is to keep up with these latest trends. Artificial intelligence – For creating emails more personalized: For the past few years, artificial intelligence is making waves in the digital world. AI uses data to know about the behaviour and provide useful results. Like other industries, AI is appearing as a new trend in the email marketing too. It will help in segmenting the email lists, suggesting the products according to the interest and making the emails more personalized. Videos – For increasing engagement: Videos have more engagement rates than the written content, shown by studies. Including videos in your emails significantly persuade the subscribers to open and read the email with performing the desired action of a website visit. To make the emails more int...

In case of emergency, you may need the complete website backup. For getting the information about 6 most incredible and free WordPress backup solutions, here you have the benefits and features discussed in this blog. Duplicator:                        This backup plugin has good reviews and a 4.9-star rating. Its automated backups made it easy and simple to use. If you want to upgrade your website, it provides you with a feature of transferring the live website to a local host. It also offers the manual backup solution. Experienced professionals and people having the average technical knowledge can use it without any difficulty and if you are a beginner, a little support will be needed. Backup WordPress: One of basic reason for its high installation rates may be its easy working with the shared host environment and its ability to function optimally at the low memor...

Shareable content is the key to success. Quality content cannot be ignored and has a high share volume. This blog is about the tips of shaping your content as highly engaging content. It’s not focused on the search engine’s favorable content but the high shares by the people ultimately become the source of ranking your website higher on the search engines. 1- Create informative content: The content which provides credible information and useful knowledge to the target audience helps you to engage with your target audience and inspire them. People like to read the valuable content as it increases their knowledge about the specific topic. There is tons of information around you but what your audience actually likes? Which sort of information do they want to get? All the answers to these questions can be unveiled through the deep research of the target audience. 2- Choose popular topics: The stirring news or latest topic in the industry automatically raises the interest of people...

What exactly is web design friction? It refers to anything which hinders the user from attaining a specific goal or completing a particular action on the website. Slow loading times, bad navigational experience or improper placement of information are the examples of friction which affects the user experience in a negative way for the website owner as well as for the customers. Turn the friction as beneficial for you: Friction has dual effects for the website, both good and bad. Your chief purpose should be adopting the frictional aspects which help your website in accomplishing the business goals and avoiding those which restrain you from improving traffic, engaging the target audience and increasing the conversion rates.   1- Allow the people to reach the desired page as fast as possible: It can be done in many ways. The enhanced user experience has made the users accustomed to it and increases their expectation to reach the desired page with minimum clicks. Cut the un...

Instagram does not disappoint anyone who uses it for the purpose of marketing because of its remarkable features which grow its users constantly. Whether you start from the scratch or remake your marketing strategies, Instagram will help you to get more and better engagement opportunities. This blog is all about the pre-eminent ways of beneficial Instagram marketing. Elegant visual content is imperative on Instagram: Images are the king on Instagram. With clear and focused images that are shot using great lights and edit via filters or editing software, your posts will get numerous likes and shares. This online social platform has more engagement ratio than Facebook and other popular social sites so the more you focus to make the Instagram marketing a triumph, the more your business grow by converting more prospects into the customers. Post the champion content: While running a promotional campaign on Instagram, you should deeply research your audience about their interests ...

Email marketing is critical and vital for the brands. Subscriptions mean that person trusts you so don’t shatter it by sending irrelevant emails. But sometimes it happened unintentionally and you only notice when the subscription rates start to drop. The only way to keep the valuable audience is identifying and avoiding the mistakes. If your buyer is unwilling to read or get your emails even then you still have the chance to revert the situation by few tweaks and improvements in emails. Plan the schedule to send emails: Imagine of receiving an email that you received at late hours (after 8 pm), how much chances you remember that email in the morning? There remains 50% chance or less! The right time is an imperative factor to convey your message. It is suggested that for B2B, the best time of emailing is in office hours and for B2C there is no exact timings so you can do it as suitable for you.   Send relevant and interesting emails: Irrelevancy will hit your business har...

There is much more to think and implement for global SEO than just the fundamental strategies. But the strategies are not completely different, you will find some valuable hints from local search engine optimization too. Make a brand recognized in the world is no doubt a challenging journey. Global SEO is a tough task as you have to face more competition but adaptation to new strategies and deep insights into other traditions can help you to leave your marks and make your business a success. Move with the evolving search trends: Search by typing or voice search, the mode of browsing is changing and it provides the high level of personalization to the audience. Now you have a new trend to master in for getting more attention from the target audience. First, do research and identify the trends of targeted country or region. Then use the research data to identify the opportunities and the type of content like written, video or images for ranking. Various personal assistant devices l...

5 popular website design and page building tools are discussed in this blog which will make it easier to choose the tool that perfectly resonates with your needs. Web Flow: Web flow was designed to create custom and responsive websites. For experienced ones, it is the best. E-commerce solutions and multi-language solutions can be integrated and the customer support is provided with more than 40 courses lessons. But, it has a complex interface for the beginners. For basic websites, it is a bit costly and offers a limited number of templates. Site Builder.com: This tool offers you to build your website easily without any coding. It allows the online presence within few minutes and provides free domain name and an email address too. It has all the features like numerous eye catchy and customizable templates which help you to start and run a website. But, initially, it can be used for free with limited editing tools. If you want to upgrade it then there is a paid plan for that. ...

It is better to add the roof check in the maintenance schedule whether you own a house or a commercial building. But after heavy rains, the case goes a bit exceptional. You may witness many minor or major damages after the stormy and heavy rains. It is good to do the roof check after the down pouring to prevent your building from the damage. If neglected it becomes costly for you. Identify the source of water leak: Your house might not completely damage by the leaks therefore to check the major affected part you should do a detailed inspection. If you want to hire a professional you can do so as they have the most appropriate equipment and experience to find the leak problem of the roof. The most obvious sign is the appearance of water stain on the ceiling. You can guess the cause through these stains. If the stains are below the plumbing fixture then these are the possible culprits. Look deeply for these signs: Musty smell: The storeroom or any other closed room produce...

In this competitive era where you see the websites with original and unique designs, there are some UX patterns which are needed to remain the same. The convenience of the user is the paramount priority because the business growth depends on your customers’ engagement and conversions and it could only be possible with the design that provides better user experience.   The significance of UX design patterns: While browsing the websites, the users develop unintentional behavior to see some UX patterns attached to perform the specific function. For example, the icon of magnifying glass is for search. Disrupting this process by designing different patterns makes the user confused that ends up in reduced website visits and less user engagement. For specific UX designs, it is better to stick with the rule as it helps you to provide the expected user experience to the target audience. Is it obligatory for designers to stick with these patterns? Adhering to some basic design patt...

The CTA is like the direct call from brand to its target audience and the more you make this call spectacular, the better your conversions will be. The below mentioned CTA examples are the best which helps these brands to improve the conversion but also inspire you to add some creative and worth clicking CTAs for your brand. 1-  Full story: The complete assessment of visitors actions on a website needs many factors to evaluate. The full story offers the same service. Their CTA is a clear and bold question as ‘what do you want?’ and under this adds relevant questions in the search bar which the reader feels close to their hearts. Another option besides sign up compels the visitors to navigate through the website and explore more about them. 2- Join.me: The Join me’s CTA is ‘start meeting’ in striking orange colour which ultimately grabs the glance of the reader. The compelling start meeting gives the feeling of importance to work and indirectly convey the message that there...

What if you get a chance of adding more cash to your monthly income as a web designer? You will certainly be cheerful and happy. The good news is you can do it by adding little extra efforts. In this blog, amazing ways are discussed for using Gutenberg as the source of extra money! A little about Gutenberg editor: Gutenberg is actually a page editor plugin of WordPress. The chief focus of this popular plugin is to make the editing simpler and easier for the users. Now you can define the layouts and the content as a block in the editor instead of using HTML or CSS coding. It provides an incredible alignment option with the use of blocks which are advantageous for large resolution screens and responsive websites. Mobile-friendliness is another aspect of the Gutenberg which has made it a great page editor. With so many pros of Gutenberg, the talk of its compatibility issues and need of further improvements is also in the air so before you are going to use this editor, it’s better t...

Gaining the attention of the prospects and customers organically is the priority of most of the successful businesses. Following are the techniques which will help you to accomplish your business goals of high conversions and building the long-term relationships with the customers. It grows and expands your business when the prospects become your loyal customers. Focus on your email marketing: The trend of email marketing is increasing at a faster pace and the reason is the ultimate benefits it provides to attract, engage and persuade the audience to convert. Email automation is another method to go higher in exposing your brand in front of the prospects and customers and help you to take next step according to the last action of your customers and manage the long list of the subscribers. Include social media buttons on your web pages: Social media is one of many popular and practical avenues which draw the large traffic to the website if done in the right way. Adding the but...

About 70-90% of the visitors never come back after the initial visit on the website. It indicates that you have only one chance to get them engaged or loose them. In this digital era, the websites play a crucial role to interact with the target audience, therefore website optimisation cannot be overlooked. Long stay time on the website improves the conversion rate and shows that visitors actually like your website. In this blog, 5 methods are discussed that will hopefully help you to keep the audience stay and engages with your website for long time. Improve the legibility of the content: Small font size or same colour text and background create hinder in reading the content. It reduces the stay time on the website and make the visitors leave your website in few seconds. Readibility is an imperative factor which should be optimised becuase if you fail to engage or impress your audience through content then how can they trust you. Optimise your visual content: This is the firs...