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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 17 2008 : 6:02:35 PM
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Hi All:
Is anyone familiar with www.stumbleupon.com ?
We are receiving a lot of new traffic from this site -- entering through the tantra lessons directory page, and on to multiple lessons from there.
Is there anyone here we should be thanking?
Suggestions on actions to take from this end, if any?
Thanks!
The guru is in you.
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jupiter
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2008 : 7:19:48 PM
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I am quite familiar with StumbleUpon. It is a great way to find good web sites in several different categories. I even have a StumbleUpon toolbar in my browser.
Someone has submitted AYP Tantra lesson page as a recommended site under the Yoga category (see http://www.stumbleupon.com/tag/yoga/) sometime last year it seems. Also I notice this page has been featured in the Yoga category. Hence the traffic since lots of folks use this tool.
I just went ahead (as a StumbleUpon member) and submitted the Main Lessons page on AYP as a recommended site. This should lead to more direct traffic to the primary lessons as well.
Other sites that we may want to publicize on:
Gaia.com
Digg.com
Delicious.com
Reddit.com
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2008 : 8:58:29 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by yogani
Hi All:
Is anyone familiar with www.stumbleupon.com ?
We are receiving a lot of new traffic from this site -- entering through the tantra lessons directory page, and on to multiple lessons from there.
Is there anyone here we should be thanking?
Suggestions on actions to take from this end, if any?
Thanks!
The guru is in you.
Hi Yogani & All,
StumbleUpon is an increasingly popular social networking site, where people promote and discuss sites of interest, that many blogs & website marketers find preferable to other options such as Digg, Delicio.us & Facebook (just Google "StumbleUpon" & "promote" &/or "webmasters" for some useful links / information.)
Here are a couple of links providing (first one) an overview of StumbleUpon's benefits, and (second one) some free "tools" (graphic buttons, etc.) from StumbleUpon:
Why StumbleUpon (is useful to promote sites / blogs)
Free StumbleUpon Tools AYP Can Use
Hope this helps.
Heart is Where the AUM Is.
Kirtanman
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VIL
USA
586 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2008 : 9:17:51 PM
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Hey, Kirtanman! Nice to see you again:
VIL |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2008 : 11:33:58 PM
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Thanks much, Jupiter and Kirtanman:
And, yes, long time no see, Kirtanman! Don't know if you saw that we finally took your advice from way back when about RSS, thanks to Jupiter resurrecting it a few days ago. Still, I have been getting emails asking what RSS is, so we added a "help" link to bring folks along.
Regarding StumbleUpon, this is all new to me, but I can't help but notice the traffic when it occurs. There has been intermittent traffic from StumbleUpon for some time, like from a lot of places. To be honest, I never gave it much thought. Then there was a spike coming from the site a few weeks ago, which simmered down after a few days. And all of a sudden today it went through the roof with well over 2000 hits on the Tantra Lessons Directory page alone.
So it has my attention, and I can see these kinds of sites have a lot of potential for sharing the AYP writings.
Unfortunately, I have no time to be playing around with it due to the writing schedule and everything else that is going on here.
Would either or both of you be willing to do some work on it? Or anyone else? I am very interested in presenting AYP in all possible locations, but not in a way that will smack of excessive promotion. What we have here is pretty unique, so no hard sell is necessary or desired. We just want to put the info in places that will make it easier for yoga practitioners to find us. Our content and wonderful community here will do the rest.
On a related subject, we are getting a lot of play on the search engines these days, having finally gotten well optimized for that last year. About 45% of all the AYP website traffic is coming from the search engines now. That is up from about 30% a few months ago. The total traffic numbers have been growing all along, so the 45% is actually a much bigger number in hits.
The website content evaluation communities you have mentioned offer a chance to kick start the whole thing to the next level. Any help with that will be much appreciated (thanks, Jupiter, for adding the AYP mainpage at StumbleUpon). If there is anything I can do that will not eat up too much time here, I am more than willing. The RSS addition was certainly worth the effort. Thanks to you both for that.
I am also open to other ways of getting the word out on the web, as long as there is help available to do it. We are never short on ideas, but always short on doers.
All the best!
The guru is in you.
PS: While we have a good presence on MySpace, set up by Hunter, we are yet to get off the ground on FaceBook (nice page set up by "Nika," but no traffic). Another FaceBook page was set up by Sadhak, but I can't find a working link for that one right now. I don't think much is happening there either.
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jupiter
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 1:57:02 PM
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Yogani,
I am happy to help and lead this effort. Totally agree with you on the overall approach. We just need to have a presence at the right places, no need to be pushy. Anyone receptive will be drawn to it.
I'll start creating a list of significant web sites including social network sites that we can focus on. I suppose we can use this forum and/or email to coordinate with other folks who are interested in pitching in.
I am glad to read that we have already done some SEO (search engine optimization). Incoming links from good sites will help boost our ranking as well (for example, we should try to get a link from beliefnet.com). We currently have very few good links pointing to aypsite.org according to google. We need to remedy this. This is hurting our rankings when one searches for "yoga" on Google, for example. We do quite well (#2 result) on "advanced yoga".
BTW, the recent StumbleUpon submission I made is now up at http://www.stumbleupon.com/tag/advanced-yoga/ and http://tricycle.stumbleupon.com/tag/yoga/ . If anyone reading this uses StumbleUpon, please consider giving a Thumbs Up/I Like It to these two submissions so the ranking improves. |
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Guy_51
USA
170 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 2:11:06 PM
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Hi Jupiter:
Great job! I'll go to the sites and give a "Thumbs-Up" If you need any help in the future promoting AYP consider me in.
All the Best:
Guy |
Edited by - Guy_51 on Mar 18 2008 2:11:32 PM |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 2:18:57 PM
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Hi Jupiter:
Many thanks. Go for it!
Coordination can be done here in the forums, or in email as necessary. No telling who might chime in if we keep things out in the open as much as possible.
Btw, be sure to leave a space between URLs in posts here and punctuation marks, as it can kill the URL. One of those quirks in the Snitz Forum software. Parentheses are okay, but periods, commas, question marks, etc. can corrupt a URL. It is covered in a "bug note" here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....TOPIC_ID=292
Onward!
The guru is in you.
PS: Thanks, Guy! 
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 2:35:51 PM
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Hi Jupiter and All:
It should also be mentioned that we have a nice page on Zaadz, set up by Trip. Looks like Zaadz is now called "Gaia." Here it is: http://ayp.gaia.com
We also made a few attempts to get AYP on Wikipedia a year or so ago, but it did not fly. According to the Wiki elves, "not notable enough," though there are plenty of less notable spiritual teachings with articles on Wiki. I guess they want us to go on Oprah first. Any volunteers for that? 
The guru is in you.
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Guy_51
USA
170 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 4:34:23 PM
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Yes, I would love to go on Oprah to discuss AYP. Anybody have any idea how to best make contact with the Oprah people?
Guy |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 7:01:02 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by robertjames
Yes, I would love to go on Oprah to discuss AYP. Anybody have any idea how to best make contact with the Oprah people?
Guy
Hi Guy:
Kathy is in the process of contacting the Oprah people about their internet programs. As you may know, a lot has been going on there lately with Eckhart Tolle. http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=3504
There also could be a tie-in with the media discussion here: http://www.aypsite.org/forum/topic....OPIC_ID=3435
If anyone can do it, you can. Go for it!
The guru is in you.
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Guy_51
USA
170 Posts |
Posted - Mar 18 2008 : 10:11:08 PM
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Hi Yogani:
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I can't begin to tell you how much I want to and intend to share your writings and promote AYP so it can become self-suffient and thrive way beyond our lifetimes.
My thinking is to form a small group of people from all walks of life, (just your average Joe) who have experienced AYP and they give their story. End of story. With this core presentation, we approach major media. I have discussed this with others here via e-mail and I think it's very doable.
I invite anybody, with any ideas on how to help promote AYP to please feel free to share them here. "Many hands may lite work" or something like that.
Anybody who would like to participate in any capacity please contact me at: guyedawson@yahoo.com
We are going to move forward and we would love your help and participation to whatever extent works for you.
To the Future,
Guy Dawson |
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jupiter
USA
22 Posts |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Mar 29 2008 : 8:52:01 PM
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quote:
we are getting a lot of play on the search engines these days, having finally gotten well optimized for that last year
FWIW, google has recently revamped its handling of online forums, and indexes them much more quickly (busy forums find new postings getting into Google within 15 mins). |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 30 2008 : 11:09:37 AM
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Hi Jupiter:
Thanks so much for assembling this list. I am sure it will take time for the details to get filled it by those who are willing and able, so this is a beginning. A very good one.
All the best!
The guru is in you. |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Nov 20 2008 : 11:56:29 AM
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Hi All:
A "Share This Page" widget has been added in the upper left corner of all pages of the AYP website and forums that enables readers to share the current page on many large bookmarking sites. I hope everyone will take advantage of this feature, as it can bring many new visitors to AYP.
Note: The "Share This Page" widget was later moved down into the "communities" section of the left border.
Due to the efforts of a few, significant influxes of new readers have come to us from these sites (hence this topic), and there is much more we can do. Tens of millions of people visit the bookmarking sites every month, so having interesting pages put there from the AYP website and forums is well worth the effort.
What is sent with the widget is the current page link (URL). If you want to share it, just use the widget while you are on the page you want to share. Simple!
Note: It is even possible to zero in on a single forum post, if desired, and send it to bookmarking sites with the widget. To do this, find the post you want, copy its URL by clicking the globe icon on it, and paste that into your browser. Then go to the widget on that page and share it. The shared URL contains the information necessary open the page at that specific post.
Here is a recent ranking of the top 30 bookmarking sites: http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/social30
You will see most of them in the widget (click on "More" in the widget for the entire list)
One very popular bookmark networking site that is not available in the widget yet is "Yahoo Buzz." I am mulling whether or not to add it to the AYP website with its own icon. Until it is added, either in the widget or as a stand-alone, you can copy AYP page links and add "stories" to Yahoo Buzz here: http://buzz.yahoo.com/submit
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On the subject of video, brought up by Jupiter in a post above, we are going to follow through on the "slideshow" idea on Youtube, though slightly in reverse. We will put the AYP audiobook previews on Youtube (and probably other sites). This possibility was pointed to by Kathy123 (thank you!). It will be audio with a cover image showing, very easy to do because we already have these audio previews in Adobe Flash on the books page. They only need to be converted to video format and they can be shared on the video sites. This can be done with the radio interviews too, though they are longer and will probably have to go on Google and other sites where there is larger video capacity. Youtube videos are limited to 10 minutes.
These initial audio/video entries are only a toe in the water, until real AYP videos happen. Not sure when that will be. It depends on when someone is willing to get in front of the camera.
The guru is in you.
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Nov 30 2008 : 12:16:34 PM
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Hi All:
"Yahoo Buzz" has been added to the pull-down menu on the "Share This Page" widget. You can find it in the left border of every AYP page under "Communities."
Take a look and see how you can share any page of the AYP website or forums on the popular bookmarking services.
Thanks for helping spread the word, and all the best!
The guru is in you.
PS: Individual post URLs can be shared also by following the instructions noted in the previous post above. This is handy because posts of interest can get lost in long topics. It is possible to zero in on them with a special link by using the globe icon located on each post.
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krcqimpro1
India
329 Posts |
Posted - Dec 01 2008 : 12:38:25 AM
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Hi, Robert James/Yogani,
I think it is an excellent idea to get "experienced" members to actually "narrate" their experience in terms of when they started with AYP, what milestones they have crossed, how the advance has impacted their personal and professional lives etc. Today there are so many competing "systems" available, aggressively promoting themselves, that it is hard to decide which is genuine and which is not.
Krish |
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Dec 01 2008 : 10:27:46 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by krcqimpro1
Hi, Robert James/Yogani,
I think it is an excellent idea to get "experienced" members to actually "narrate" their experience in terms of when they started with AYP, what milestones they have crossed, how the advance has impacted their personal and professional lives etc. Today there are so many competing "systems" available, aggressively promoting themselves, that it is hard to decide which is genuine and which is not.
Krish
Hi Krish:
Good point. Most of the bookmarking sites in the "share this page" widget provide the option for comments on the page being shared. It is an easy way to let many others know about your experiences with the whole of AYP, or any part of it.
If everyone did at least one bookmark per week, it would add up to a big network in short order.
For those who are reading the AYP books, doing book reviews and sharing personal experiences with the practices on the book seller sites is also extremely valuable for helping others find and understand what AYP is about.
Many thanks!
The guru is in you.
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yogani
USA
5242 Posts |
Posted - Mar 27 2009 : 12:39:19 PM
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Hi All:
Over the past two days we have had over 1000 more new visitors than usual, because someone highlighted the AYP Links Section page on www.stumbleupon.com . Whoever did that, thank you!
We'd like to have that sort of thing happening more often on many networking sites.
See the "Share This Page" gadget in the left border on any page of the AYP website.
Pass the word, and all the best!
The guru is in you.
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