Think Melbourne, Think Victoria

Almost a month ago on a fine day morning I got a mail from Indiblogger with subject "It's your time to visit Melbourne NOW!". I read the mail and it really touched my heart as it made me think it was a call for me. I had been waiting long to pen down my dreams about Melbourne. I always wanted to visit Australia especially Melbourne. The first thing that came to mind after reading the mail was "Think Melbourne, Think Victoria". Melbourne is the most popular tourist destination in Victoria state, Australia. The reason why this tag came to my mind was due to the Melbourne cricket ground.

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

I have been hearing about the Melbourne cricket ground from my school days. I had the dream of visiting Melbourne from my childhood days. The contest gives wings to my dream and I can fly up in the air ! Yes, In my dream I can see myself flying to Melbourne, Australia.

I planned to head over to the Official tourism website of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia for visitors from India to learn more about Melbourne attractions, culture, art, dinning and entertainments so that my trip to Melbourne is definitely going to have a well organised travel plan. The website gave me a clear idea on all aspects of Melbourne.

Day 1

The first and foremost thing after breakfast is visiting Melbourne museum to learn about the environment, culture and history of Australia.

                                               (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

The second thing will be a visit to Melbourne Aquarium, the not to be missed attraction in Melbourne. The Aquarium has a 360 degree Oceanarium where I can see live feeding of giant sharks.

                                               (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

I would now love to explore the great maritime history of Australia by stepping on-board and joining the crew on the Polly Woodside.

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

I would love to do a Melbourne heritage walk and then relax the rest of the day at hotel room.

                                               (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Day 2

I would love to start the day with a balloon flight over Melbourne, Australia.

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Spend the day cruising across Yarra River

                                             (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Next I will head to Melbourne cricket ground and spend some time in the wonderful ground

                                                (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)
 Finally I will end the day with shopping from Queen Victoria Market

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)
 Relax the rest of the day at hotel.

Day 3

I would start the day with an Aboriginal Heritage Walk in South Yarra

                                             (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Next I would spend the day at leisure in Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne

                                             (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)
Relax rest of the day.

Day 4 

Visit Flemington Heritage Centre

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Do a walk through Melbourne city outskirts to experience the flat landscape, lush parks and gardens, riverbanks and bayside scenery

                                              (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

Get back to the hotel early and spend the whole night at leisure

Day 5

Early morning after breakfast check out from the hotel and board flight back to India with sweet memories about Melbourne

                                             (Image Courtesy:: http://www.visitvictoria.com)

This blog-post is published as part of  Tourism Victoria's “…it’s your time to visit Melbourne NOW!” contest on Indiblogger

Official site for Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: www.visitmelbourne.com/in

Soak No More Digital Media

We are a generation which saw a lot of changes from Radio to Television, Walkman to iPod, Desktop to Laptop then to Notebook as well as Netbooks, Telephone to Mobile then to Smartphone, Floppy to CD etc. Our generation is now living in a virtual world where everyone love to keep social media relationships more important than real world relationship. We had a good social life but technology and digital media have now acquired the major share of our life. The biggest question now is do technology offer us a better life or it is taking away our skills. I used to remember lot of telephone numbers in my mind before I had my mobile phone. Now all the numbers are in my mobile phone and I hardly remember the phone numbers of my friends. The life today is so much fast that I don't get time to build a relationship with my neighbours and far off relatives. The world is becoming so nuclear that each person is inside a virtual room. We need to break the digital chains and come out to mingle with the society. The most important aspect of human beings is that we need to live as social animals. Now the world is so virtual that we have a digital society instead of a real society. The current scenario is dangerous as the children growing will never learn about the importance of being a social animal. Society is highly important as we need to have good human being in our surroundings. The good and bad in human beings are generated by family, situations, circumstances and the society that mentors each and every person. If there is no real life society then "How can we mentor future generation ?". Every human being should take a strong step to ensure that he built a society that can mentor the next generation.

It is okay to use advanced technology and digital platforms but it shouldn't soak your real life. If digital media starts soaking your real life it is high time you plan ways to pull out of it.

This is my entry to The Surf Excel Matic "Soak No More" contest organised by Indiblogger.

Killer Landing Page Optimisation Techniques & Tips

Have you faced situations where PPC and other Paid Search is not converting while organic traffic results in converting ? This might be a usability issue in your landing page and there might be numerous reasons why this happens.

Here are some of the main factors which might be causing this:

1) Is your Search engine optimized content on the landing page having too much length ?
2) Have you mentioned the highlights of the product/service clearly ? Using a bullet point will make visitors see the features/highlights quickly
3) Do you have more than one call to action ? A visitor should be able to book from the landing page whenever he feels that this is the right product which he has been looking for. Visitors behavior changes from person to person and there should be some
4) We all know that this is a fast paced world so the landing page should be well optimized to give the customer a quick value proposition why he should book our products/services.
5) Loading time of the landing page is an important factor. The desired loading time would be around 10 seconds for a well optimized landing page.
6) Don't repeat content as this will make visitors think that the site is not having valuable information.
7) Design the landing page in such a way that it captures the attention of the visitors as soon as he enters the page and also communicates the primary value proposition to the visitor within the least time.
8) Test different versions of content to attract visitors and test which sort of content is working in PPC campaigns. Use seperate landing pages for PPC with the outcomes.

You can now optimize your landing page based on the above 8 main factors which affects the conversion from Paid Search. You can also do a A/B testing and multivibrate testing to find which landing page is getting more conversions from Paid Search.

Internet is fun with social media

Today each and every child is aware about the latest digital technologia. I used to see the radio when I was a kid. Every house had a radio in that time, after sometime I started to TV. The same way I used to see VCR then came DVD players. I also saw big personal computers (PC's) then the size became small with laptops and netbooks. In my childhood I have seen people writing inland letters and postcards then all of a sudden I started to see people interacting through emails. Technology is developing so fast and we all need to stay updated with the latest technologies. I am so lucky to have been in the digital technology era. The greatest invention of digital technology era is mobile phones. I have seen telephones in my house then after my college days I started to see mobile phones. The mobile phones was then replaced by smart phones and tablets. The most important use of smart phones is that you can keep connected with your friends and family on the move. I am now able to interact with all my friends through my mobile internet.

The most useful thing on mobile is the applications. Every smartphones have a wide range of inbuilt applications. Google Android operating system is reliable and supports a wide range of applications. For me Internet is an inevitable thing as I am working in online marketing industry. Digital media is an advanced version of Internet. In digital media you need to stay connected to digital media through latest technology gadgets. Internet is so fun even when you are marketing. The social media marketing and community management allows me to interact and build strong relationship with people across the world.

Another great way to use internet on mobile is when you are travelling abroad. Vodafone offers smart plans for using mobile aboard.

Today each and every person spends atleast 1 hour on Internet. Soon we will see a generation that will say "I cannot lead a life without internet".

This post is my entry to the Internet is Fun contest by Vodafone in Indiblogger. To learn more visit  www.vodafone.in/fun

Google+ rolls out new version of its profile and pages

Search giant Google has made its intention clear to take up the social media space with Google+, the social network. The most noticeable change is the navigation ribbon on the left. Hover over an icon to get started. The navigation ribbon has all the most used features like games, photos and your personal profile. Google plans to retain its social network users by providing them a pleasant experience. Hope the move to offer more customized experience on the social network keep users interested in Google+.

The search giant now boasts that it has 170 million users since it’s 2011 launch.

The new design also tries to promote the hangout feature. There is a new dedicated hangout page on the site that users can easily access and join on-air video chat hangouts.

If you are a Google+ user then you should be aware of the changes. What do you feel about the new redesign of Google+ ? Is the design strong enough to retain existing users and attaining more users to compete with Facebook ? Do leave your comments.

Build your brand identity using Google Plus

Businesses have been waiting long for the release of Google+ business pages. Finally Google has opened the Google+ pages. Business can start using the business pages for managing their brand identity. The Google+ page is open to all businesses irrespective of brands, products, local businesses and other businesses. Here is Google’s definition of Google+ pages

“For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you’ll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello,”

Google+ page is a lot similar to Google+ profiles but pages don’t support notifications and will not allow you to add people to circles until your page is already added to that person’s circle.

Below is the Google+ Page of Toyota USA

One of the first and foremost thing you should do after creating a business page is to link that business page to your website URL and also link the page from your website. You need to use rel=”publisher” tag when you are linking from your website. You can link in two ways.

You can also add images to your Google+ page photostrip. Below is the step:
To create a ‘photostrip’ effect, click on the blue ‘edit profile’ button and then click ‘Add some photos here’.
The next most important thing is to create a custom URL using http://gplus.to/
The orginal article can be viewed at Sexy Social Media

Pearl spot fish fried in banana leaf - Karimeen Pollichathu

The most delicious dish I have experienced is Pearl spot fish fried in banana leaf (Karimeen Pollichathu) in Grand Hotel Cochin. Pearl spot fish (popularly known as Karimeen) is a tasty fish whether it is fried simply or fried in banana leaf. The dish is so popular in Kerala, God's Own Country. You can get the dish in star hotels as well as toddy shops. Here is step by step guide on how you can make delicious Pearl spot fish fried in banana leaf

Serves: 4

Ingredients

Pearl Spot Fish/Karimeen - 4 fish cleaned and side slit

Coconut oil - for frying

Tender banana leaves - to wrap the fish in while cooking

Method of cleaning pearl spot fish:

1)Slice the thick coating of thick scales on pearl spot fish with a sharp knife.

2)A cutting board can be used to rub the fish. Use salt while you rub the fish against a rough surface. Do clean inside out.

3)Wash the fish in clean water and then soak it in curd/lemon juice to get rid of bad smell of the fish.

4)Take the fish out of the curd/lemon juice after half an hour. Wash the fish again in clean water.

5)Make side slits through the fish.

Ingredients For the paste:

Shallots - 10

Onions - 1 big

Ginger - 2" piece

Garlic - 10 cloves

Chilly Powder - 1 tablespoon

Pepper powder - 2 teaspoon

Vinegar - 2 teaspoon

Curry leaves - 2 strands

Salt - As needed

Preparation Method

Grind together pepper powder, shallots, ginger and garlic into a coarse paste.

Add chilly powder, turmeric and salt and little water to make the masala to a paste form.

Rub it all over the fish inside out.

Wrap the fish in banana leaf

Leave it covered for half an hour for the masala to be absorbed into the fish.

Fry it in coconut oil on both sides, until it turns dark brown.

Serving Method

Serve hot in a plate along with the banana leaf with onion rings, tomatoes, cucumber and a piece of lime.

Below is a video on how a prepare pearl spot fish fried in banana leaf is prepared in toddy shops.

The video courtesy goes to Welcome to Kumarakom

This is my entry for the Master Chef Contest on IndiBlogger.