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Ounousa is one of the leading Arabic web portals for women and lifestyle with a staggering 2.6 million likes on its Facbeook page, which is ranked number one in “Women” category in the Middle East and North Africa, according to Social Watchlist.

The portal aims to provide women across the Arab world with topics covering celebrity news, fashion, beauty and health, cooking, love and relationships, bridal, and internal design among others.

The company, based in Beirut, was founded in 2009 by the Elsa Aoun and Wassim Kari who both share a background of telecommunication engineering and management. In less than two years, Ounousa reached the semi-finals of the MITEF Arab Startup Competition 2010 – 2011, among other awards and recognition.

Ounousa covers Arabic celebrities’ news from a fashion angle, something which proved popular with the audience, according to Aoun. The website also supports local designers by highlighting them in its stories. “They [celebrities] are great ambassadors for local designers that we are very proud to showcase”, Aoun told ArabNet.

The number of unique visitors leaped from one million in 2010 to nearly five million in 2013. Today the website attracts more than 600K unique visitors monthly, with nearly one million monthly visits and six million pageviews, according to the co-founders. “If you target your audience with the right content, chances are they will recommend you to their friends and engage with you more,” noted Kari.

The website capitalizes on its gigantic Facebook presence to engage with their fans. The team, composed of 5 full time employees, reached out to their followers asking them to vote for their favorite logo. The audience are “involved in the development of the brand and the growth of the company,” commented Aoun.

The website has a lite mobile edition; however, an iOS app is due to be released by the end of November 2013, followed by an Android version soon after.

By the end of 2013, Ounousa will roll out an online shopping section.  “Our plans are to further enrich our content to appeal to a larger audience and launch a set of new features,” concluded Aoun.

And this is an animated promotional video for the website (in Arabic):