Silkenvoice: Help me choose my new site layout(s)!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Help me choose my new site layout(s)!

So far it looks like my decision to re-brand my podcast as "Silken on Sex" was a good one.

On Jan 13th I Tweeted: "My Silken on Sex podcast is up to #21 in the iTunes Sexuality category! Getting there--I was at #7 a month ago before my old RSS failed." 10 days later it was at #3, and seems to be holding steady in the #4 - #7 range. It only took 5 weeks to recover. But... I've not seen my sales recover. And I've now got about 1000 more listeners than before. I am sure part of it is the economy, but I'm not going to take the easy way out and blame it on circumstances beyond my control.

I'm certain that a lot of it is my AudioSensual website. It isn't as smooth and silken as one might expect from my voice -- so I've been working (for months) on a site re-design. And because I don't know the first thing about javascript or css stylesheets or CMS platforms, and can barely navigate Dreamweaver, it was going rather slowly. In fact, my site re-design project had stalled completely by the time the original podcast crashed. I was thinking about aggressively putting money aside so I could get a real web-designer involved. A friend of mind recommended Joomla to me a few months ago but I was rather intimidated by it, so I didn't explore it further.

I admit I've been feeling a bit glum and my partner has been amazing. He put me in touch with a friend of his who does SEO optimization and marketing and she asked me some great questions that dovetailed with some of the one's he's been asking. He's been working in the e-Commerce arena in some form or other for over a decade, so he's made some great suggestions and asked me to clarify my vision for "Silkenvoice." Which I've been doing, with some difficulty, since I'm terrible with drawing free-hand and not much better with graphic design. He recommended I use a CMS like Drupal for building an integrated site, and has been teaching me how to make good use of Google Analytics and the stats from my hosting company, Go Daddy.

I looked at a LOT of sites this weekend, particularly the sites for podcasts in my category (sexuality) as well as others that use the podcast as part of a commercial enterprise. I liked some of what I saw, and didn't like some of what I saw. And what I didn't like was the amateurish sites, and the obviously Blog*Spot ones, of which mine are both. So... I started looking at Blogger themes and widgets with an eye toward making a more professional-looking site. In the process my search engine turned up CMS again, and Joomla and WordPress. The latter made me do a double-take. WordPress (which I have a rudimentary knowledge of) isn't just a blog software, it is a CMS platform, and has plugins and widgets for doing everything from generating sitemaps and robot.txt files to providing product sale/purchase platforms. And the themes! Oh heavens, there are thousands upon thousands of themes, and finally, finally I found ones I like that made it possible to have a blog and a podcast and a shop and whatever else I want, all with nice, slick, silken-smooth and aesthetically pleasing pages with properties that populate to all the pages under that theme automagically.

So now I am in the process of setting up some tests of the various themes that I like and I'm asking for volunteers to contact me if they want to (and have the time to) look at the functional mock-ups, answer a few questions, and give comments of their own. So please pop me an email at tester [at] silkenvoice . com and I'll send you the particulars.

Once I've got that up and running, I'll actually work on getting some pertinent affiliate links / ads on my site to generate a bit of revenue, too.

Thank you in advance!

------------------------------
PS: The Silken on Sex podcast comes out every Wednesday, so look for it in the wee hours of the morning tomorrow.

Want more Silkenvoice?
Support my work with a small (and welcome) donation.
Get my AudioSensual CD on iTunes or Amazon.com
Visit my Erotic Audio Site: www.AudioSensual.com
Listen to Silken on Sex: SilkenPodcast.blogspot.com
Read my Blog: Silkenvoice.blogspot.com

Kayar
Silkenvoice: AudioSensual Erotic Shorts, Vol. 1

Labels: shop, site

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...: New layout of your site silkenonsex.com looks very nice. Good work, Kay.; 11:25 AM, March 09, 2010

Silkenvoice Erotica
for the listening pleasure of men, women, and couples.

Amazon.com

AudioSensual Erotic Shorts

Wetter:

JUST RELEASED: AudioSensual Erotic Shorts, Vol. 1

Jane's Guide says my AudioSensual Podcast is Quality and Original.

These words have been used by others to describe my voice:

Addictive Alluring Amorous Arousing Amazing Bedroomy Breathy Captivating Carnal Compelling Cultured Distinctive Dreamy Dulcet Eloquent Enthralling Enticing Erotic Elven Exciting Expressive Glorious Golden Hot Honeyed Husky Hypnotic Impish Intense Intimate Intriguing Intoxicating Lovely Languid Lulling Luscious Lyrical Mellifluous Musical Naughty Pensive Pleasing Playful Poetic Potent Provocative Resonant Rich Seductive Sensual Sexy Smoky Soft Soothing Stimulating Stirring Suggestive Sultry Sweet Tantalizing Thrilling Throaty Tranquil Tasty Unforgettable Vibrant Vivid Velvety Warm Welcoming Whiskey (and most commmonly)
... Silken ....

QUOTES MEANINGFUL TO ME

I walk, and I notice. I am sensual in order to be spiritual. I look into everything without cutting into anything. --Winter hours, p100 (Mary Oliver)

The spiritualization of sexuality is called love. It is a great triumph over Christianity. --(Nietzche)

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as a poem. No why or wherefore, no direction, no goal, no striving, no evolving. Like the enigmatic Chinaman one is rapt by the everchanging spectacle of passing phenomena. This is the sublime, the a-moral state of the artist, he who lives only in the moment, the visionary moment of utter, far-reaching lucidity. Such clear, icy sanity that it seems like madness. --(Henry Miller)

Why does the word 'reality' always have such a sinister, gray, fatalistic ring? It is the realists - that is to say, the death-eaters - who are responsible. But the men who are thoroughly wide-awake and completely alive are in reality, and for these reality has always been close to ecstasy. --(Henry Miller)

The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. --(Henry Miller)

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. - (Anais Nin)

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person. --(Anais Nin)

The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself. --(Anais Nin)

I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy. --(Anais Nin)

Electric flesh-arrows... traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm.--(Anais Nin)

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. --(Anais Nin)

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman. --(Anais Nin)

I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I donâ€™t mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I donâ€™t mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling, be all that I am capable of doing, but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding. --(Anais Nin)

I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic -- in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself. --(Anais Nin)

I'm of the mind that we can always fuck indoors; its the semi-public sexual excitement that makes things interesting. --(KR SilkenVoice)

Good sex is artful and intuitive. Great sex is artful, intuitive, and informed by communication and observation. Often, it is what our partner doesn't say that is most telling. --(KR SilkenVoice)

I am a person of conscience. And while I have few morals in the sense most people do, I am conscious that others have them, and I prefer not to lead them astray... My values are very simple and I live in harmony with them: I do what makes me happy. And I try not to do what will make me unhappy. --(KR SilkenVoice)

I am sapiosexual. I think geeks and nerds are sexy--I often want to rub my clit against their minds. --(KR SilkenVoice)

Intimacy is best served spontaneously. --(KR Silkenvoice)

Words, phrases, syllables, stars that turn around a fized center. Two bodies, many beings that meet in a word. the paper is covered with indelible letters that no one spoke, that no one dictated, that have fallen there and ignite and burn and go out. This is how poetry exists; how love exists. --(Octavio Paz)

Even in the midst of our vulgar civilization we, if lacking God, have at least the cosmic elements. These great essences have a singular value for that psychic-sensuous contemplation which is the secret of lasting happiness. --A Philosophy of Solitude, p7 (John Cowper Powys)

Shan is a sudden mystical experience closely associated with everyday life, regarding it as a blessed gift, and enjoying every moment of it. I would call it gratitude for living, a form of Oriental existentialism. There is a sense of the mystery of the mere act of living. A Shan monk enjoys the humble chores. €�It is a miracle I am drawing water from a well! All life and all living are miracles. --From Pagan to Christian, p170 (Yutang Lin)

The purpose of our lives is to be happy. --(The 14th Dalai Lama)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.--(The 14th Dalai Lama)

The art of contentment is the recognition that the most satisfying and the most dependably refreshing experiences of life lie not in great things but in little. The rarity of happiness among those who achieved much is evidence that achievement is not in itself the assurance of a happy life. The great, like the humble, may have to find their satisfaction in the same plain things. --(Edgar A. Collard)

Often, the true glory of existence is confined to individual consciousness. That'€™s okay. Let us live for the beauty of our own reality. --Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (Tom Robbins)

Of the desires some are natural, others vain, and of the natural some are necessary and others merely natural; of the necessary some are necessary for happiness, others for the repose of the body, and others for very life. (Epicurus)

Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough. --(Emily Dickinson)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. --(Eden Phillpotts)

Love is like a reservoir of kindness and pleasure, like silos and pools during a siege. --(Yehuda Amichai)

The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live... These are the only hours that are not wasted -- these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty. This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance. --(Richard Jeffries) We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure. --(Gerald Brenan)

Leisure is the Mother of Philosophy. --(Thomas Hobbes)

Leisure may prove to be a curse rather than a blessing, unless education teaches a flippant world leisure is not a synonym for entertainment. --(William J. Bogan)

Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon. --(Susan Ertz)

Where the Dow replaces the Tao, all life becomes desecrated. --(Franck A Little)

Amusement...the happiness of those who cannot think. --(Alexander Pope)

So little does life, in its larger, simpler aspects interest usâ€¦ that in order to titillate our jaded senses, the very arts of our time have to crack their whips â€¦and skin themselves alive for our delight. --A Philosophy of Solitude, p46 (John Cowper Powys)

I find nothing in fables more astonishing than my experience in every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact so stupendous as to take the luster out of fiction. --(Emerson)

You wake up in the morning, and lo! Your purse is magically filled with 24 hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life. It is yours. It is the most precious of possessions. No one can take it from you. It is unstealable. And no one receives either more or less than you receive. --(Arnold Bennett)

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. --(Stephen Vincent Benet)

From the philosopher's viewpoint almost all the activities of men appear to me as vain and useless. --(Descartes)

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream. --(Virginia Woolf)

The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life. --(Peter Matthiessen)

American Indian lore speaks of our existence as a threefold miracle: â€œthat things exist at all, that life came out of things, and finally, that life became conscious of itself.â€� â€¦ We take these three amazing facts of our existence for granted. We become desensitized and behave as if these perpetual miracles were unimportant in the conduct of our daily lives. --(Duane Elgin)

To live more consciously means to be more consciously aware, moment by moment, that we are present in all that we do. --(Duane Elgin)

We teach our children how to measure, how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe. The sense of the sublime, the sign of the inward greatness of the human soul and something which is potentially given to all men, is now a rare gift. --(Abraham Joshua Herschel)

Thinking is learning all over again to see, to be attentive, to focus consciousness; it is turning every idea and every image into a privileged moment. What justifies thought is its extreme consciousness. --(Camus)

Most of one's life. . . is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking. --(Aldous Huxley)

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. --(E.B. White)

When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much. --(Fen-Yang)

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. --(Jean Arp)

In us or through us the Primal Mind will have contemplated and enjoyed its own works and will continue to do so as long as human life endures on this planet --(John Burroughs)

The wonder to me is that Man is not even more astounded and dumbfounded than he appears to be each hour of his presence here; that he is not more withdrawn from his so called necessities than he really is, in order to sit beneath a tree, Buddha fashion, and gaze in wonder and astonishment upon the wholly inexplicable world about him. --(Theodore Dreiser)

I must tell you that I should really like to think there is something wrong with me. Because, if there isn't, then there is something wrong with the world itself - and that is much more frightening. --(T.S. Eliot, Letters)

Hume argued acquisitiveness was one of the most basic drives. The true statesman must recognize this fact. Since most people were governed mainly by ambition and avarice, these vices should be imaginatively channeled to work toward the public good. Such passions could be controlled only by other passions; to expect virtue to reign was hopelessly naive. (David Shi)

What can you say about profit and fame to a solitary and untroubled mountain monk. Weeds of delusion don't grow in the mind where flowers of wisdom bloom. --(Stonehouse)

I'm erecting a barrier of simplicity between myself and the world. --(Andre Gide)

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. --(Einstein)

My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements... but to be consistent with the truth as it may present itself to me at a given moment. --(Tolstoy)

We who revel in nature's diversity... tend to brand Homo sapiens as the greatest catastrophe since the Cretaceous extinction. --(Stephen Jay Gould)

It is only logical that the pauperization of soul and the soul of society coincide with the pauperization of the environment. One is the cause and reflection of the other. --(Paolo Soleri)

When I hear somebody say 'Life is hard', I am always tempted to ask 'Compared to what?' --(Sydney J. Harris)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Note: As I am an adult, this blog may contain content inappropriate for children

Silkenvoice

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Help me choose my new site layout(s)!

1 Comments:

About Me

Silkenvoice Erotica
for the listening pleasure of men, women, and couples.

These words have been used by others to describe my voice:

Previous Posts

*Note: As I am an adult, this blog may contain content inappropriate for children*

Silkenvoice

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Help me choose my new site layout(s)!

1 Comments:

About Me

Silkenvoice Eroticafor the listening pleasure of men, women, and couples.

These words have been used by others to describe my voice:

Previous Posts

Note: As I am an adult, this blog may contain content inappropriate for children

Silkenvoice Erotica
for the listening pleasure of men, women, and couples.