Why this customer keyword trend is important:

1) Intent. The more specific a phrase is, the more you can match your content to the intent of the user.

2) Ranking. The longer the phrase, the easier it is to get a high rank. It can take months to get a high rank for a short phrase. But fewer people are targeting the longer phrases. You can often get a top rank in days or weeks.

3) Higher Conversion. When people reach a page that gives them exactly what they want, they are more likely to take an action such as buying something or filling in a lead generation form.

Frequently, businesses get overwhelmed at the prospect of targeting these long search terms. Suddenly, they have gone from targeting a dozen or so keyword to hundreds or even thousands of keywords! How can anyone manage that?!

Process

The key is to manage the process, not outcome. That is, you do not specifically try to rank for each and every keyword. Rather, you find the root keywords and incorporate them into your websites and blog posts as naturally as possible, adding modifiers when and where appropriate.

Using the "Green Homes" example from above, you could create multiple webpages or blog post targeting specific searches such as "Green Homes in New Jersey" or "Green Homes in New York." And within those pages target some of the loner phrases such as "affordable green homes for active adults" or "smart green home architects" or whatever else is important to your business growth. As you engage in the process, you will be able to find what is working and what is not. Some keyword phrases will pay off in terms of new leads and customers and others will not. You will be able to keep refining your targets based on the feedback you are getting.

The post Keyword Searches Are Getting Longer and Longer appeared first on Emergent Somatics.

Twitter is a social media platform that some people - like me - use only grudgingly. No offense to all you twitter-heads. I like the platform, but I do not like to tweat very often. I find twitter to be a distraction and rarely useful for my information junkie needs.

That being said, Twitter can be an incredibly useful tool, and I do use it from time-to-time. However, I do not want to have to REMEMBER to use it, so I found a way to automatically tweat my blog posts using Feedburner. If you don't have a free FeedBurner account, I recommend getting one. The service is a great way to get people subscribing to your blogs and to keep them updated on what you are doing.

This blog post assumes that you already have a FeedBurner account and are going to use it to automatically add your new blog posts to your Twitter account. The set-up process will take less than five minutes.

Here is the lesson as a pdf: Tweat Automatically with Feedburner.

How To Tweat Automatically Using Feedburner

A short screenshot session on how to use Feedburner to automatically post your blog posts to Twitter. Feedburner is free. And it was purchased by Google last year, so you will need to log into Google to use it:

Pick Your Feed:

Click the Feedburner Option That Reads "Publicize":

(and try not to laugh at the tab that reads "troubleshootize")

On the left hand menu pick "Socialize"

And Now Click the Tab That Says "Add Twitter Account":

*Please note: You can post to more than one twitter account from one blog. And you can post from multiple blogs to one twitter account. See the end of this post for why you might want to do so.

Google takes you to Twitter where you can connect your Twitter and Google/Feedburner accounts:

If you are already logged in, you can just click "Allow."

Or you may need to log into your twitter account:

For now, leave the options as they are:

Check out the bottom of the page to see how your tweet will look:

My tweats are the "Default," they have my blog post title, plus Google's automatic URL shortener. Pretty cool, eh?

You are not done until you activate the service. My button says "Save." Yours will say "Activate."

Now, write a blog post and watch it show up on your twitter account!

You are now twittering automatically. Every time you make a blog post it will show up on Twitter.

Tweating to and from multiple blogs and twitter accounts

Above, I mentioned that you can post to more than one twitter account from one blog. And you can post from multiple blogs to one twitter account. Why would you want to do so? If you have a business with multiple people blogging, you could set-up one Twitter account for your entire company and have all of you employee's tweats go directly to that one twitter account. It would be a great way for fans of your company to keep up with everything that you are doing. Your employees could tweat to both your company twitter account and their own personal twitter account.

In my case, I have several blogs that are thematically connected. I have both of them automatically posted to the same twitter account. When people follow that one account, they get updates from both those blogs. My twitter account gets more followers and my blogs get more visitors. And because it all happens automatically in the background, I don't even have to think about it.

The post Automatic Twitter Updates Via Feedburner appeared first on Emergent Somatics.

It's great being able to buy a cup of coffee, or a meal, or gas, with money that comes directly from my passive income streams. Someone in France, the U.K, the U.S or god knows where else - buys a download. Then the money goes automatically into my PayPal account, where I can access it instantly through the debit card.

Previously, I would have to transfer the money to my bank account before having access to it. Somehow the immediacy of the debit card makes the income more real and more emotionally satisfying.

And a brief note about Google Checkout. I mentioned in a previous ecommerce post, that I added Google Checkout as a payment option to my e-junkie shopping cart. I do not have the exact figures in front of me, but there has been a substantial increase in sales. I'd estimate it at 20%.

The post Passive Income, PayPal Debit Card and INSTANT Gratification appeared first on Emergent Somatics.

One failure is an audio mp3 series, based on the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education. It is designed to help eliminate back pain. I initially envisioned it as a $97 download that would sell dozens of times per month and create several thousand dollars per month in passive income.

It didn't sell any copies at $97. In fact, it didn't sell at $77 or $67. It didn't sell in any appreciable volume until I had it a $27. Even then, it only sold 5-6 times per month, only making me about $150 per month. A failure, right?

I also used Snaps X Pro to create some video tutorials on how to use E-Junkie. My e-junkie video tutorials, at $19.95 only sell 4-5 times per month, for about $95 per month in sales. However, my e-junkie videos have the added benefit of bringing in a small amount of consulting income. People hire me to help set-up their e-junkie shopping carts and products. Currently, I make about $500 per month from this product and related sales. Another failure?

I put google adsense (advertising) on one of my websites last year. It started bringing in a few dollars here and there. I was intrigued by the idea, so I created 3 new websites specifically for the purposes of putting google adsense on them and gaining a new revenue stream. It took me 3 weeks of consistent work to get the websites up and running. My hope was that each website would produce $5 - $10 per day in advertising revenue and create a revenue stream of $500 - $600 per month. I figured that once it worked, I could start creating new websites, until I created the passive income stream that I wanted.

I overestimated the income. Each website only produced 50 cents to $1 per day in revenue. With the income from my other adsense sites, I get about $125 per month from google in adsense revenue. Failed yet again.

For now, I will skip the details of my other failures - the Amazon affiliate account that only brings in about $10 per month, the E-Junkie affiliate payments that are only $10 - $15 per month.

Overall, my failures bring me aprox. $600 per month of passive income and an additional $2000 per month in consulting income. This does not include my individual coaching client's and the money I make teaching at the University of Utah.

If I keep failing at my current rate, I will have $1500 per month in passive income by the end of this year. Unless, of course, I screw up my failures and one of them becomes a hit.

How about you? How much passive income are you making from your internet failures, so far?

The post How to Fail Online. appeared first on Emergent Somatics.