1999 onwards – Copywriting and building HTML websites for friends and small businesses. Visit HomeMadeCreatives.com for a record year-wise.
2002 – Built a fan site for music composer AR Rahman consisting of articles written by fans
https://rahmania.homemadecreatives.com/
2003 – Created a community for creativity in Dubai – ORB. To get members to join our Yahoogroup, compiled and edited a free digital magazine and advertised the offer of a free print version on online forums and had around 300 members sign up.
2002-2003 – Created, edited and published a music magazine website – Dhwanii.com, with a weekly email newsletter and regular article contributors from around the world. The first 3 editions of the website were pure Html-Css. The 4th and final version of the website was created using a CMS/Blog script called Expression Engine. Recorded around 12,000 unique visitors in the final version.
2004-2006 – Continued building Html-Css websites for entrepreneurs and friends.
2007 – Started creating self-hosted WordPress blog sites for Content ideas centred around the UAE as an experiment. Tried monetizing the blog posts using Google Adsense and started receiving a $100 cheque every year till 2013. All this without any updates on the blog since 2009. Some of them are as below:
1. UaeCreatives.com (2007) – a blog record of the print advertisements and campaigns running in the UAE mainly in 2007 and 2008. Site still up and currently running as a WhatsApp group of a community of entrepreneurs and freelancers.
2. UaeWebOfLife.com (2007) – a blog site and email newsletter of an updated list of web services, online forums and popular blogs and websites in the UAE during 2007-2008. Also interviewed forum owners and popular bloggers – record still here at:
https://uaeweboflife.wordpress.com
3. UaeWorldRecords.com (2012) – A blog site of the constant world record achievements in the UAE.
(Update: Site defunct – Facebook page still up.)
4. UaeTamil.com (2010) – A blog site for the burgeoning Tamil population in the UAE. Blogged about the popular Tamil restaurants in the UAE. One restaurant review made it to the first listing on Google search. Also scanned restaurant menu cards and published them on the blog. This idea was later picked up by many large sites. (Update: Site defunct – Facebook page still running https://www.facebook.com/uaetamil
2010-2019– Helped an entrepreneur neighbour to build and run his company websites initially. I used WordPress for the first versions. Later handed it over to other developers as didn’t have time.
AspCottages.com
AspAuditing.com
AspSons.com
AspaConsultancy.com
AlAnsariAudit.com
2019 – 5MinuteCreativeBreaks.com – A website and Instagram channel to showcase my papercraft and photography and also feature the work of my friends. (Update: Site now defunct, follow on Instagram.com/5_minute_creative_breaks)