Author: Igor

  • Overnight Guests? 5 Tips for Being a Great Host

    Having people over to stay can be fun and exciting, but there is a lot of pressure on you as the host to make your overnight guests feel comfortable and welcome. Some people have a natural flare for hosting and are always considerate, caring, and think of all the little things. But don’t worry if that isn’t you, because here are five tips to make sure you are an amazing host to your overnight guests and they have a pleasant and enjoyable experience in your home.

    1. Have a Comfy Guest Room

    Comfort is essential when it comes to hosting people overnight. You don’t want them to have a terrible sleep in a hard and uncomfortable bed, crammed into your spare room and surrounded by all your clutter. You want your guests to feel welcome and at home, so the first thing to do is make sure your guest room is comfortable and inviting. Have simple yet sophisticated décor with a touch of personality, pick out one of the best mattresses so your guests have a wonderful sleep and provide them with the comfiest cushions and pillows. 

    2. Bathroom Essentials

    Lugging around towels isn’t fun; they take up so much space in your bag and then you may have to pack them while they are still wet, where they go all musty and unappealing. To be a great host, provide your overnight guests with fresh, fluffy towels and let them know they will have them before they arrive. It is also a good idea to set out some essential toiletries for them to use in the bathroom just in case they forget anything or so they can lighten their packing load by leaving their big bottles of shampoo at home.

    3. Meal Preparation

    Depending on what time your guests arrive, you may want to provide an evening meal to welcome them to your home. Alternatively, you could take them out and show them some of the sights of the area at the same time. Whatever you decide to do in the evening, a great overnight host will always have something ready and prepared for breakfast, it is the most important meal of the day after all! Make sure you are aware of any allergies or food preferences so you can put together a fantastic spread in the morning.

    4. Provide Information and Suggestions

    If they are going to be doing a bit of exploring, as you are the host and you know the area, you can put together some ideas of things to do, areas to visit and places to eat. You don’t want to regiment your guests time here, so give them suggestions and options and let them pick what they want to do themselves. A great host will have the knowledge and ideas, but give guests the freedom to decide. Factoring in time for them by themselves and asking if they want to do so is considerate, even if they turn around and tell you to just come with them, a good host will always give the option.

    5. Don’t Wait on Them

    Obviously, they are your guests and you want them to relax and enjoy their time in your home. But many people will feel much more comfortable staying if they can help you in some sort of way. If one of your guests asks if they can do something while you are cooking dinner or clearing away, you aren’t obliged to say no. Let them take on a small task like putting things in the dishwasher or setting the table and have a chat to them at the same time so they feel less like an intruder.

    To be a great host, you need to be considerate and accommodating; be yourself and follow these tips to make sure your guests have a wonderful experience in your home.

  • 12 Powerful Methods For Branding Yourself

    There’s a lot of opportunity in this world to make all of your professional dreams come true, but there’s no denying that there’s a lot of competition out there. As such, it’s important that you’re doing all that you can do to get yourself ahead of the pack. Things like studying for qualifications and working hard will both help, but it’s also important to incorporate more modern techniques into your professional career, too. One increasingly popular method is to brand yourself. This is called personal branding, which is the process of sculpting your persona in such a way that you can become known for the characteristics that you present to the world. In this blog, we’re going to take a look at a few methods you can use to achieve this goal. 

    Pexels – CC0 Licence

    Know Your Strengths

    The whole point of personal branding is that it’ll ultimately lead to new opportunities. As such, it’s important to focus on the things that you excel at. If you’re going to build your professional identity around something, then it should be something that you’re good at. So in the early stages of planning, think about the skills you have that you can do better than other people. It’s all about elevating the skills that you’re good at. During this period of reflection, it’s also recommended that you take a look at your weaknesses too. Ultimately, when you’re promoting the entire you (rather than just one skill), there’ll be times when you need to do things that are outside of your forte. By thinking about your weaknesses at the beginning, you’ll have an opportunity to work on them ahead of time.

    Choosing Your Niche

    The process of personal branding is all about diving deeper. It’s about going into detail, rather than just keeping things vague. For example, it’s not enough to just say that you’re a specialist in marketing; it’ll be much better to present yourself as a specialist in Facebook marketing. This will help in numerous ways. For starters, it’ll enable people who are looking for your specific offering to find you. Second, it’ll allow you to figure out who you’re targeting. Though personal branding will help to effortlessly bring clients to you, there’ll also be times when you need to market your services out there. If you know the specific skill that you’re selling, then you’ll be able to target your intended much more accurately.

    Sharing Your Knowledge

    A crucial part of establishing your personal brand will be to show yourself as an expert in your field. To do this, you’ll need to share the knowledge that you’ve acquired (not all of it, of course, eventually you’ll want to be paid for your expertise). There are multiple ways to do this, including writing blogs, appearing on podcasts, and releasing ebooks. You won’t be recognised for your expertise straight away, but that’s slowly what will happen. Most importantly, when people search for your name, they’ll see that there are multiple outlets where you’re showing off your knowledge. Of course, the more reputable the sites where your writing appears, the better it’ll be. Nobody will doubt your credentials if you’re a regular contributor to Forbes, the Huffington Post, and so on.

    Get the Look

    When it comes to personal branding, it’s important to remember that you need to focus on the whole package. It’s not just what you say, or the work you create, but also how you look. It has to be in sync with what you’re telling the world about yourself. If you’re pitching yourself as a young, trendy, progressive entrepreneur, then you should look that way too. It would look strange if you dressed as if you worked in a traditional office space. Instead, you should curate your own wardrobe of professional yet stylish clothes. In addition to their clothes, a young and forward-thinking entrepreneur should have some of the staples of modern trend culture, such as a tattoo. If you haven’t yet got one, take a look at the work offered by Monumental Ink Tattoo Studio, and book yourself in for a session. Focusing on your appearance isn’t shallow, and other people aren’t being judgemental by looking at your appearance as a way to check your authenticity. It’s just about showing that you walk the walk, as well as talk the talk. 

    Exciting Social Media Profiles

    Your personal branding mission will be considered a failure if it’s not making you stand out from the crowd. If you’re just lost in a sea of fellow professionals, then you’ll need to find a way to get your voice heard. In order to do this, you’ll need to make the most of the tools at your disposal. By far the most useful ones will be your social media channels and your blog – if you need some help with this, check these blogging statistics to help you grow your blog. But of course, there’s a lot of noise on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on, so how do you get your voice heard? By making things interesting. If you’re going to have success with your personal branding, then you’ll have to get creative and come up with high-quality content. There’s little room for just another voice. Part of what makes people believe in people with strong personal branding is that it’s hard to fake it: if you’re at the top, then you’ll need to show it, and delivering interesting and exciting content on your social media channels is a great way to do it.

    Manage Your Google Searches

    When you brand yourself, you’re creating a narrative about your life. It’s not going to tell the whole story of who you are, but will show people who are interested in the professional side of your existence what they need to know. However, in order for this to work, you have to control the narrative. It’s a bit like with advertising: it wouldn’t work if people were presented with the flaws in the marketed product. In your case, the equivalent is what comes up when people search for your name on Google. It’s unlikely that it’s anything bad, but if it’s all just neutral content, then it’s not going to have much of an impact. As such, one of the best things you can do is to ensure that the first page of results for your name contains top-quality, career-boosting links. This will take time and effort, but it is worth it. 

    Be a Presence At Trade Events

    Ultimately, you’re trying to establish yourself as one of the prominent voices in your industry, or at least in the specific area of your chosen industry. As such, in order for this to be the case, then you’ll need to be involved in your industry events. It’s really important that you’re attending and having an impact at your industry’s big trade shows and other events. It’ll be all the better if you can make a splash in one way or another, such as by delivering a speech. While you’re there, present your most confident foot forward and connect with as many people as possible. And talking of connecting with others…

    Connecting With Others

    There’s only so far you’ll go by yourself. Once you’re on your way towards branding yourself, you’ll want to begin connecting with others. This should, of course, be a mutually beneficial relationship — you should give as much as you receive. It’s all about identifying potential partnerships and then working to bring them to life. If you’ve branded yourself well, you’ll find that the people you contact will be eager to talk with you.

    Pexels – CC0 Licence

    Link Yourself To Successful Brands

    As much as it’s possible to present a good image of yourself in the eyes of your potential customers, ultimately there has to be some demonstration that you’re able to work well. It’s not all about style; there has to be substance there. One recommended way to do this is to promote your association with the high-quality companies that you’ve worked with in the past. People will take you much more seriously if they can see that you’ve worked with some of the world’s leading companies.

    Get Feedback

    It’s recommended that you get some help when it comes to your personal branding. You’re the one making all the decisions, but you’re doing it for the public, and who knows if they see what you want them to see? From time to time, ask your friends and family members, or even outsiders, for some feedback on how you present yourself and how it comes across.

    Be Consistent

    Finally, remember that your personal branding will only work if you’re consistent. It can’t be something that you dip in and out of; it has to be watertight. This is why it’s really important that you brand yourself in a true way; if you’re faking something just to get ahead, then eventually it’ll backfire: the mask will slip off at some point. Once you’ve established your values and professional worldview, stick to it. Reputations aren’t formed overnight; they’re formed through the process of repetition.

     

  • A beginner’s guide to international SEO

    In this increasingly digital world, businesses across all sectors have no choice but to embrace the online sphere and target their clients and customers through that medium. One of the keys to that is being visible on SERPs, which means the importance of SEO is perhaps greater now than ever before – especially in sectors where the market is saturated with competition.

    There are a few basic principles to ensuring best practice when it comes to SEO, but what about when companies are faced with the challenge of reaching audiences in different territories? It’s not just as simple as plugging your website into Google translate and putting the results live. So, here’s a beginner’s guide to international SEO and some useful strategies you may like to adopt.

    What is international SEO?

    International SEO allows you to promote your site and target other audiences that are situated around the world. Often, these audiences will speak a different language, but there are more factors in play than just the copy on the page.

    You need to be able to meet the specific needs of the people in those areas, which means adapting your site accordingly. For example, you may not offer all of your products or services in every region, while you may also have to tailor your site to reflect changes in pricing, tax or shipping details.

    Why might you need international SEO?

    Modern businesses simply cannot afford to adopt a one-size-fits-all approach – especially when it comes to international SEO. Instead, you need to treat all of your regions and territories as separate entities, tailoring your online presence so it addresses the pain points of that particular audience and provides them with a viable solution.

    Going international can be a difficult move to make, which is why you might decide to enlist the services of external SEO experts, and there are some fundamental practices that are important to master if you’re going to make your organisation a global success.

    What are some strategies to boost your international SEO?

    There are many different aspects to international SEO and there’s no magic formula for success, otherwise all businesses would implement it. Creating an effective strategy will depend on a wide range of factors such as the niche and the new territories that are to be targeted, but there are a few ploys that as a general rule will help you to shift the dial in the right direction.

    • URL structures: There are a few options here, including using a country code top level domain (ccTLD), a subdirectory or a subdomain of a generic TLD (such as a .com), or even a combination of these. There are pros and cons to each – a ccTLD, for example, is perhaps the simplest way to geotarget for regional SERPs but it can be inefficient to develop and maintain multiple separate websites, each with their own infrastructure and costs. Subdirectories, on the other hand, are often easier to initially set up and less costly to maintain but require correct geotargeting in Google Search Console and the implementation of hreflang tag markup to ensure Google understands the intended audience. 
    • Regional Search Engines: Statistics reveal just how dominant Google is when it comes to desktop traffic search in selected countries, but what about in those nations where other Search Engines are more prevalent? For example, Baidu is popular in China and Yandex in Russia, so if you’re expanding into those territories then you’ll need to optimise your site in accordance with their particular guidelines. 
    • Building Website Authority: Building authority through gaining quality 3rd party links to your website(s) is a vital part of any SEO strategy and can prove an extremely effective tool. Again, this is not something you can achieve with a blanket approach. The strategies you deploy in one country may not work in another, so you’ll need to research the individual markets and target those sites with the highest domain authority and the greatest relevance to your product or service using tactics appropriate for that market. 
    • Translations: Avoid using automated translation at all costs. Often, certain words won’t translate like-for-like from one language to the next, and automatic tools tend to spit out copy that any prospective customer would instantly recognise as being created by a machine. Take the time to use human translators to ensure that you capture the style, tone and context of the copy as it is intended to be read. As a result, you’ll have the solid foundations of a successful international SEO strategy.

  • Film: Sunday by Thomas Slack & Joshua Kang

    We’ve talked about Thomas Slack’s video work before. We love everything this Los Angeles-based photographer and videographer does, and his latest short film – directed with Joshua Kang for INLAB + Maison Kitsuné – is a visual delight.

    Don’t you wish all Sundays were like this?

    www.tomkellyslack.com

    SUNDAY an INLAB + Kitsuné short film from thomas slack on Vimeo.

  • A Guide to PPE in Healthcare

    Personal protective equipment (PPE) is used in many different industries and for many purposes. One of the most important places that you will find it will be in hospitals and it is absolutely vital for the health of workers, patients, visitors and public health that proper PPE is used at all times.

    lead aprons

    Why PPE is So Important

    PPE is essential in a hospital as it is used to protect those in the hospital from infection and from spreading germs. While hospitals have incredibly high cleaning standards, they can also be dangerous places if steps are not taken to protect public health as it is somewhere that those with illnesses that can very quickly spread through the air, surface contact or bodily fluids constantly come through.

    Types of PPE

    There are many different types of PPE that are used in healthcare and will be found throughout any hospital – here are a few of the main types that you will see.

    Gloves

    Transmission of an injection often occurs through the hands as people use these to touch people and foreign objects, particularly in a hospital setting. This is why latex gloves are so important and must be used and changed constantly by healthcare workers.

    Masks

    Another way that transmission occurs is through the mouth, especially when it comes to airborne viruses. Masks are supposed to cover the mouth and nose and can both protect the individual from breathing in germs as well as passing on germs (this is particularly important when healthcare workers are working with extremely vulnerable patients).

    Goggles & Face Shields

    Eye protection in the form of goggles and face shields are all important. This is because blood and other bodily fluids (which are common in hospitals) can easily come into contact with the eyes and germs in these fluids can then enter the body through the mucous membranes. 

    Clothing

    There are then clothing items such as aprons, gowns and shoe covers that are mainly used in surgery to protect the healthcare workers and the patient as well as by visitors when visiting a person that is in isolation. For example, a lead free x-ray apron is commonly worn during radiological procedures to protect against harmful radiation exposure, while still offering flexibility and comfort for the wearer. Similarly, coveralls are another essential piece of protective clothing, especially in laboratories, chemical handling areas, or industrial settings where workers may be exposed to hazardous substances. Scrubs, on the other hand, are lightweight and hygienic garments often worn in hospitals and clinics to help maintain a clean and sterile environment.

    Sourcing PPE

    As such vital equipment that can save lives, it is vital that high-quality PPE is sourced for hospitals and that staff always have access to what they need. It is also important that special laundry containers are used for items that can be cleaned or special waste containers for PPE that must be disposed of.

    PPE plays a hugely important role in healthcare and can save lives, so it is vital that everyone has access to the right type of PPE and that it is always worn properly.