Name of your website?Philippines - Travel and Life in Paradise
Your name?
Hans Neukomm
Your Location (city, etc)
Places I love - at different locations in the Philippine islands
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Help you get started in your adventure into places you'll love! Philippine islands - your possible place for retirement or your small business in paradise as your last step to heaven. A summary of 8 years living as a web publisher to share the beauty of this God made paradise with all who might be tempted to enjoy a life or retirement amidst smiling eyes and most loving people.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
My love for God. God's love for us all is reflected in the extraordinary beauty of clean and wild nature. The Philippines islands are among the most beautiful nature places I have encountered on 4 continents during the past many decades of my traveling working life.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
1997 - Cyberspace Ashram - www.kriyayoga.com. A site entirely dedicated to God and Love with complete teachings of love and the holy science of Kriya Yoga. All online - all free. Ever since I started, I was focusing on one site only and to integrate all into one single site / domain - even all my hobbies.
The very beginning of my site was a single HTML page hosted on free hosting for the first few months until I realized that I need space to grow and more control to succeed.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
My domain's name is kriyayoga.com - Kriya Yoga is the sanskrit name for an ancient teachings of love that had different names in different cultures or times. I chose one of the more common names in modern times. Thus it makes sense to use the precise name of the teachigns as a domain name.
All sub-sections of my site have a title directly related to the content and focus of that site-section. The topic of the domain is God and Love, hence each and every subsection also has God and Love as the only solid base.
If there is a paradise on earth as a final step home to God, then it only can be in the Philippines with its millions of smiling and most welcoming people and a nearly perfect sense of extended family. Hence life while working here is just as near to life in paradise as can beon earth.
The summary of my site is the result of 8 years of traveling and ten thousands of photos taken - all with the purpose to motivate others to learn to value true nature and simple life among loving best friends.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
The site forucs is on the beauty of nature and the loving aspect of all people, while still seeing the possible problems to be solved. There is beauty everywhere if beauty and love is what you want to see and strengthen. The site is about quality of life as a result of love realized in all aspects of life rather than on business and profits alone. The Philippines offer a great number of living examples of improved quality of simple but loving family life and love among all rather than on career and earning of western society.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
To help qualified retired professionals to come, enjoy life and share their live's experience with all while living amidst a sunny and God loving people of the Philippine islands. Specially for web publishers wishing to share their past decades life and professional experiences with all world, the Philippines offer a most beautiful environment with all logistics and modern connectivity needed to enjoy your retirement while having fun working what you love to do.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
I gave all I had and have and receive all I ever needed. Thus I honestly can say that I have the greatest possible return on investment in time and money as a result of improved in fun, love and happiness. This late part of my long life is my most successful ever on this planet - by all means.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I keep it as I have it right now. I do all on my own from dedicated server admin to complete creation and publiscation of entire content including photography. It is my intention to stay within the limits of my knowledge and skills to stay free and keep all simple and secure. I have all the budget needed to do whatever needed to accomplish my goals.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
My site IS really big with some 15'000 unique visitors per day from total approximately210+ countries and major sections in German, English, Spanish and French. Since all is managed by a single person during the entire past 11 years - any increase in traffic and increased or improved resources needed can easily be handled all on my own. In fact I moved from regular shared hosting to dedicated server in fall 2006 and plan to upgrade to an even faster dedicated server sometimes before coming Christmas season 2008.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Many thousands of US$ in hardware each year - several thousands of US $ in high end photo equipment (Sony Alpha - always newest model) and lenses (CarlZeiss). Annually new high end laptops, etc - all in addition to year round charity projects of 5 digits $.
What has been your biggest challenge?
To love in all situations of life and to craete true solutions of love for all occurring problems of life - ALL.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
To do all on my own. To learn as I need when ever a new situaiton or problem occurs. To create solid unique content that serves human needs and to apply solid SEO to each and all pages published. To to all the directory and search engine submission myself. To always grow with new technologies like RSS feeds, blog, etc. Currently I have 5 RSS feeds (merged into 1 OPML feed), one blog, a growing photo gallery, a grwoing section of Love eCards and tropical wallpapers and several forums separated by topic to complement my site. All these various add-ons have substantially contributed to the extraordinary overall success of my site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I had no precise expectations when I started in 1997. That time the www was tiny, almost no information or tutorials available and no one to ask. The only the goal I had was to spread God's teachigns of love by all possible loving means and to grow with the development and evolution of all www related new technologies without gettgin lost in useless or inefficient/wasteful side-wings of the web. The current result of the Cyberspace Ashram as a life-project by far exceeds any expectations I ever could have had.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
11 years and enjoy full success by all means in all aspects. Thus I may continue until I return home to God. Ever since I started my site I enjoyed a very solid annual increase in traffic and all other numbers as well. The annual growth usually is in the range of 100% - what else could I expect or need to be happy ? It's all perfect as is and always growing as a result of daily efforts to learn, to work harder and to improve.
Replace this with a question of your own
If you lack success in your life or wish to be more successful to enjoy your own life, did you ever try to fully invite and intgegrate God in all aspects of your life - including your work, politics and family life ?
What is your website address?
Philippines - Travel and Life in Paradise
