Turning stumbling blocks into stepping stones

Last Thursday (20th March) we had a cricket match with another Sri Lankan team called “Pawura”. Ours is called G 15+, in which the name originates from the team comprising of 15 members and plus indicating their wives. It was held in a ground near Safa park and I have nothing to complain about their organizations for the match. There was a tent for us to sit in, food and drinks were also provided.

Despite burning from the sun I managed to take few shots of our team playing cricket.
We have won one match against QS cricket team and having that pride in mind we played this match as well. But unfortunately we lost this match owing to many reasons. But however we learnt our lessons that day and thought to practice well for the next match and never to underestimate the opposite team.

This Friday we have been invited to cheer QS cricket team playing in Ajman. Transpotation and food will be provided by them. We are eager to cheer them and visit this part of UAE as we have not gone that far.

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else;
And for everything you gain you lose something else.
It is about your out look towards life; you can either regret or rejoice.”

How to draw traffic to your website using SEO

While working on my previous company I came across this concept called Search engine optimization (SEO). This was a new concept to me at that time and I did a lot of researching and gathered information on that.

Search engines are a very important source of quality traffic for web based companies. But if your site is not ranked high enough on the search engines (e.g. after the third page of the search result), none of that traffic will come to you. Another great way to attract targeted traffic is through Pay-Per-Click Search Engines.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of preparing your website so that search engines can better understand its content and/or purpose. To get listed correctly in the search engines each page of your site needs to be optimized. Your site must be focused on the content, products, or services you provide. Keywords used in the content are very important to have a high rank in search engines.

Here are some traditional places to keep keywords,

Use specific keyword phrases,

1. in the domain name


2. in the file name


3. in the Title tag


4. in the Meta description tag


5. in the Meta keyword tag or in the image alt attributes


6. in an H1 (or any H) tag


7. as the first words on the page


8. in bold and/or italics or a different color


9. multiple times in the first paragraph or twice on the page


10. in the copy in every single spot on the page where it might possibly make sense to use it, and


11. in all the hyperlinks pointing to a page.

Google is one such search engine in which most users do keywords searching. But there is something you need to keep in mind. Google is constantly changing their ranking criteria because of search engine spam. If you put the same keyword phrase in many of those spots, you might very well trigger a spam filter which is not good for the long run of your site. Therefore the best advice I can give you is to do your SEO without any particular formula in mind.

Google’s PageRank algorithm tests to see how often a web page is updated and the length of time between changes in content. Access the below URL to read more on page rankings.
http://www.highrankings.com/linkpopularity

In order to make your site crawler friendly you need to make sure that you always have some form of HTML links in the main navigation on every page which link to the top-level pages of your site.

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site. Sitemap does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.

Reference : http://www.highrankings.com/optimization.htm
                 http://www.sitemaps.org

FISH! Philosophy

I have been blessed to attend a seminar on FISH! philosophy which is evolved from a fish market story. I hope you have seen the video of the fish market, how those people enjoy their work life and make the customers happy as well. If you haven't seen the video perhaps you can meet these people in Seattle fish market. This is a real story and they are still there. During the lunch time people go to this market to see how they sell fish. It's very amazing to watch and I'm sure you will be stressed free from your busy work lives to hear their songs and jokes.

Fish! philosophy is based on 4 factors which are very easy to implement in our day today work life.

:: Be there

:: Make their day

:: Play

:: Choose Your Attitude

Hope you'll have a happy and stressed free work life.
For more information please visit http://fishphilosophy.com

Newlyweds

At Mamzar Park

Alright, here again we are going to organize a newlyweds exclusive lunch fiesta. This will happen in Mamzar park of Dubai where we can enjoy ourselves with loads of outside activities. I wanted to go to Jumeirah beach instead which I think is nicer than Mamzar. But the main reason I wanted to go there is, we all went to Mamzar once and we couldn't go to Jumeirah still. I have seen nice pictures of the beach and I'm mesmerized by its beauty and enchanted by its magical surroundings. I am looking forward for the big events. I like to walk on the beach at the evening and thread on sea water foaming ashore.

There will be new lady members joining this event to situate a women association. Earlier I was the only female member among 14 other male members. Last time we went to Mamzar, I videoed them playing beach volleyball and having a bath in the sea. I'm looking forward to have more fun again in the beach.

Fireworks

Fireworks of Dubai Shopping Festival

This is one of the pictures taken at Dubai Creek

Doom dum dum....we were astounded by hearing the first sound of fireworks in Dubai Creek. It took 10 seconds for us to realize they were fireworks. We watched the night sky glittering with dozens of firecrackers. It was such an eye-catching scene that I couldn't get my eyes off them. We managed to take loads of beautiful photos of fireworks. These fireworks will be there everyday until 24th Feb i.e.Until DSF is over.

Blessings in Disguise

Problem
George W. Bush arrived in Dubai and he was warmly welcomed. This was the first ever visit of a sitting US president to UAE. Due to his arrival some roads were closed for security reasons and there were huge traffic jams. My colleagues were cursing him for causing much traffic.

Solution
But lately all the cursing turned to a blessing after a text message from office when we were returning home. Due to some road closure and expected congestion it was declared a public holiday in Dubai. That was a surprise holiday, after havoc for most of the people who were caught in the traffic for hours. Fortunately I was able to come home without getting caught to much traffic jams.

Result
We spent our holiday in our friends' place also known as "Maha Gedara". We all got together and gave a lunch for one of our friend's parents who visited Dubai. The lunch came out well although the chief cook was not present (He got married in January and enjoying holidays in SL). Most of us learned to cook after coming to Dubai. We were able to have this lunch coz of US president's visit, so I call it a blessing in disguise. :)

We were called "Al Baraha Gang" which is comprised of 15 members (all are boys except me) for now and rapidly growing with new members joining after the marriage. Three of my friends went back to SL to get married and they are due to come back with their new brides in February. We are in the process of organizing nice events for couples who are starting new lives in Dubai.