DAY 2 -- Find and Develop Your Best Site Concept

SBI! Module Used Today -- Brainstorm It!

Your DAY 2 goal is to find your best Site Concept.

Here we go...

It takes energy and time to pick "just the right niche." Making the right decision will be worth every minute you invest during DAY 2. Proceed with patience and perseverance.

What Is a Site Concept?

It is the central theme, the niche, upon which you will base all of your site's content (hence the term "Theme-Based Content Site"). Every page that you write will be about a topic that is related to your Site Concept. Each one of those topical pages focuses on a Specific Keyword, which is why we also call these pages Keyword-Focused Content Pages ("KFCPs").

There is plenty of room for more than one Web site in any niche. Don't worry when you find competitors. You have a huge advantage, thanks to SBI!.

How To Recognize Your Best Site Concept

A great Site Concept must...

1. be in demand. A reasonable number of people must be searching for information about your theme. If your theme is too narrow (ex., an unknown off-island-off-an-off-island in the Caribbean), there is not enough demand for you to monetize, even if your entire (too tiny) market finds you!

2. not be too broad. If your Site Concept is too broad (high Real Supply), the competition will be severe. It will be difficult to win or reach top rankings at the Search Engines for this theme's keywords.

   For example, it is impossible to "own" the theme of "travel" and even the Site Concept of "Caribbean" is highly competitive. If you have 80 hours per week and are ready to work for a year, you might succeed. But creating a site about one of the islands is your best opportunity...

   • You most likely know a lot about one island. And that goes for "islands of knowledge," not just geographic islands!
   • The competition will be less intense. So it will be easier for your well-written content pages to rank highly with the free Search Engines.
   • Those who find you will be highly targeted. They will be much more interested in your content. It is far easier to PREsell those searching for topics ("keywords") related to narrow themes than broad ones.
3. excite you. Choose something that you know and love (or that you are willing to find out more about). If you do that, writing lots of information-packed content pages becomes an easy pleasure instead of work. Think "passion" and "knowledge" -- if you have it, it will shine in your content.

4. deliver high ROI potential. It must offer excellent options for monetizing traffic to your site. This ensures the ROI (Return on Investment) you want. Make every visitor to your site a possible income-generator.

5. be in sync with the time you have available to work on your site (i.e., if you only have 1 hour per week to work on your new business, don't tackle a highly competitive niche -- more on this in the Site Concept Tolerance Range discussion).

Bottom line on choosing your Site Concept?...

It takes just as much time to build a low-potential business as a high-potential one. So invest the time now, get the Site Concept right, and you will maximize your returns later, earning far more income per hour invested down the road.

The Plan... How To Develop Your Best Site Concept

Step 1 - Create a list of potential Site Concepts and choose your top 3.

Write down ideas for good Site Concepts as they hit you -- make your list as long as you can. What do you know and love? What have you learned "on the job?"

Developing ideas for your best 3 Site Concepts is important, so take your time doing this. Remember... the final concept will be your business foundation.

You have lots of time during the deeper brainstorming of DAY 3 and the development and assessment of monetization options during DAY 4, to change your mind. So don't be afraid to make the decision and run with it.

Let's go... Pick the three areas that you love the most and that you think would appeal to others. After all, if no one is interested in your niche, you won't get much traffic.

Choose concepts that are not too broad in nature (ex., "travel" is too competitive). But don't make your niche too narrow (ex., that unknown off-off-island in the Caribbean) -- not enough people search for "too-narrow" niches.

The Goldilocks "just-right" niche is narrow enough for you to ultimately "master," but is also wide enough that there is enough Demand (i.e., enough people doing searches at the engines) for you to build significant traffic. Choose on the basis of "your gut and brain"...

• If you love the subject matter, others likely do, too. Good themes that are "just right" have an audience that identifies with the subject matter.
• If you know an area, you already have a pretty good idea of what might be "too broad" or "too narrow."

  Use Common Sense and Your Own Knowledge

  What is "too broad?" It's any idea where the market is too big. For example, "travel" was an extreme example. "Italy" is too broad. Choose "Sicily" instead (if you know it). And "New York" is too broad. Instead, try "Tribeca"... or go with "New York Pizzas" instead (if you love them!).

  "Too narrow" is the opposite. There just aren't enough people interested in Caltanissetta, a city in Sicily. That's too narrow. Sicily is "just right."

Do Some Quick Research Before Brainstorm It!

• Free keyword research tools enable you to quickly "measure" how broad/narrow your potential Site Concepts are...

  Highly Recommended! Here's how to quickly reach "just right."

• Can't narrow your list to 3 Site Concepts?...

  Highly Recommended! Here's how to assess lots of ideas, fast. Race through all your ideas and narrow down to the most promising 3.

• Still stuck for good ideas for 3 Site Concepts?...

  Read this idea-boosting article and/or use Search It! to stimulate some new ideas and find keywords in other languages. Here's how.

All set with your 3 best Site Concepts? It's time to...

Step 2 - Use Brainstorm It! To Research Site Concept(s)

Brainstorm keywords for each of your three top Site Concepts simultaneously. This will get the...

• Value Demand (click for an important explanation) data for all related keywords, and the
• Real Supply (click for an important explanation) data for all keywords.

1. Brainstormer

Go to the following URL...

http://sbiapps.sitesell.com/brainstormit/

Log in with your username and password (provided in your "Get Ready for Site Build It!" e-mail).

Each resource (also called a "query") always starts with the same 2 STEPs...

STEP 1 Select a Brainstormer Function.

STEP 2 Select a Brainstormer Resource.

After you select STEPs 1 and 2, read the text in the gray area to the right of the resource to learn more about each particular resource. You will also receive important STEP 3 instructions on what to do next. (Do this the first time you try every new query at Brainstormer.)

Now let's "walk through" an example of the brainstorming process, step by step, for three possible Site Concepts, "Anguilla" (a Caribbean island), "Antigua" (another Caribbean island), and "Caribbean" itself.

STEP 1) Select Vertical Brainstorm.

STEP 2) Select Site Concept Finder.

STEP 3) Enter your three Site Concept Keywords (see "anguilla," "antigua" and "caribbean" - without the quotes - in the screenshot below) and click on the Brainstorm It! button...

After any Brainstormer query, you end up at the Master Keyword List...

Now it's your turn. Return to Brainstormer and do the Site Concept Finder brainstorm for your three potential Site Concepts.

...

2. The Master Keyword List (MKL)

The MKL allows you to study all 3 Site Concepts simultaneously, sifting out the ones that are too broad or too narrow, while zooming in on the ones that are profitable and fall inside your Site Concept Tolerance Range.

There are 3 phases of analysis you'll do as you narrow down to your best Site Concept. At the end of your review, if you find that none of your potential Site Concepts make the grade, it is very simple to start again with another 3, going either narrower, into sub-niches, or broader, if you started too narrow.

Since Phase 1 is all about getting the big picture, we begin with Real Supply...

Phase 1, Step #1 -- Study the Real Supply of Your 3 Site Concepts

Your goal is to rule out any of your 3 potential Site Concepts as either too competitive (too broad) or too narrow (very little overall Supply, which often indicates a niche without enough opportunity for income).

A word of caution... Do not be too quick to dismiss or delete a Site Concept if it looks too broad. There may be a sub-niche contained within it that you might miss without a closer look at the keywords, as you will see with the "Caribbean" and "Caribbean cruise" example below.

In your MKL, click on the Real Supply label at the top of its column of numbers. That will sort the keywords with lowest Supply at the top. Click again to see the words sorted by Supply with highest at the top.

You will see one or more of your Seed Words, your potential Site Concepts, at or near the top of the list (within the top 15-20 words), like this...

In the screenshot above, "caribbean" has Real Supply of over 900,000. You would need to work 80 hours a week for at least a year to earn some income with this Site Concept! Too broad.

You may want to rule this one out, but before you delete all the keywords associated with this Seed Word, let's check to see if there are any sub-niches that might be of interest...

In the Seed Word menu, select "caribbean" as the Seed Word. Now only the words associated with that Seed Word will appear in the MKL. They will already be sorted by Real Supply, highest to the top (all sorting and filtering paramaters continue from Seed Word to Seed Word until you change them)...

There are two keywords with reasonable Supply -- "caribbean cruise" at 37,113 and "caribbean cruises" at 25,361. Plus there's "royal caribbean" at 46,794. With three keywords about cruising in the Caribbean, all with reasonable Real Supply, you have an indication of a good potential niche.

Now it's time to ask yourself if you like cruising and have any interest in it. If you do, you've found a new potential Site Concept to research. If you don't, then you can rule out that possibility. For now, let's say that you do like cruising.

It looks like we'll rule out "caribbean." That leaves us with "anguilla" and "antigua." Based on a Site Concept Tolerance Range top-end of 200,000, "anguilla" has a reasonable Supply.

However, the Real Supply of "antigua" is too high (235,000). Still, it's not that much above 200,000. Your tolerance range (and passion) might keep it as a possible Site Concept (i.e., you're ready to really work hard on this one) -- and profitable -- for you. We may rule out this niche, but for now we'll leave it in. Further analysis may show that this is a good niche.

Or if you decide that Antigua is just too competitive, repeat the same process for Antigua as you did for Caribbean, looking for sub-niches that have more "winnable" Supply (less competition). And yes, you find that "antigua and barbuda" has a Real Supply of 97,667.

Here is our list of preliminary conclusions after Phase 1 (Step #1)...

1. We have ruled out "caribbean" since Supply is too high.
2. You like cruising, so "caribbean cruising" is a possibility.
3. "antigua" is over 200,000. Anything close to 200,000 is going to take much time and energy. It's do-able, but are you ready for a major commitment? If not, you'll see how to narrow down in a bit.
4. "anguilla" seems like a solid option.
5. "antigua and barbuda" is a maybe, depending on what the next Phase reveals.

Select each of the other potential Site Concepts from the Seed Word menu and sort their keywords by Supply (high to top) one last time. Are there any other keywords with a reasonable Supply that could make a good Site Concept? If not, you're done.

Next...

Phase 1, Step #2 -- Examine the Value Demand of Your 3 Site Concepts

Click on All in the Seed Word menu to return all the keywords in your MKL. Then click on the All Keywords button to reset your MKL (clear all the sorting).

Now it's time to use the MKL's filter tool.

Click on the Filter button. Filter boxes appear just below the column labels and the corresponding column of numbers, like this...

Enter 1000 into the Value Demand filter field (the default filter is "greater than"). This automatically delivers all keywords that have Demand greater than 1,000. All the words meeting this criterion will appear immediately. Click on Value Demand at the top of the column to sort by Demand, highest at the top.

This filter gives us 152 words in the screenshot above, but how many come from each Seed Word? That's easy to find out. See the Keyword column?...

Type each Seed Word into the filter field under the Keyword heading of that column. Use "contains" (the default) to find the words that contain each Seed.

"Caribbean" has 126, "anguilla" has 6, and "antigua" has 20. And what about the new words under consideration as potential Site Concept Keywords?

Well, "antigua and barbuda" has 4 keywords with Demand greater than 1,000. How did you determine that? By entering "barbuda" in the Keyword filter, using "contains." Using the same technique, you find that "caribbean cruise" has 19 words with Demand over 1,000, (a subset of the 126 found for "caribbean").

For each potential Site Concept, you now see "strong-Demand keyword depth." In other words, you know how many keywords there are with Demand greater than 1,000 for each theme.

As you check the number of keywords for each Seed Word, also look at the actual Demand number for the words in each set. You'll see that not only does "caribbean" have the most keywords, it also has words with the highest Demand. Next is "antigua," followed by "anguilla."

This is a common pattern. The higher the Supply (in Step #1, above), the more keywords you'll find with higher Demand, here in Step #2. Your job on DAY 2 is to find a Site Concept Keyword with a Supply range that is winnable and with a reasonable number of words with good Demand (greater than 1,000).

A Seed Word with too many keywords having Demand greater than 1,000 ("caribbean" in this case) is likely confirming that the niche is too big (except, of course, in the unusual situation where Supply was relatively low -- then you have a real winner!). In this case, it's quite possible that there is a good, winnable sub-niche located somewhere within that bigger niche.

Since both "caribbean cruise" and "caribbean cruises" show up with excellent Demand and winnable Supply, we would probably now delete the "caribbean" Seed Word (it's too competitive) and do a new Vertical brainstorm using Singular AND Plural to add "caribbean cruise," which will give us both singular and plural forms of the Seed Word. But before we do...

If you want, before deleting "Caribbean" from your MKL, scan your list of Demand-sorted and "Caribbean"-containing keywords with Demand over 1,000. You just might find an interesting sub-niche here.

OK, back to our analysis...

Comparing Antigua with the remaining Site Concepts, we find that "antigua" has higher Demand for its keywords than either "anguilla" or "antigua and barbuda," while "anguilla" has higher Demand for its 6 keywords than "antigua and barbuda" has for its 4 keywords. Supply is a bit higher for the "anguilla" keywords, too.

The steps in this phase demonstrate the amount of thinking required before you delete a Seed Word or add a new one. Take your time. It's worth it.

At this point, we will delete "caribbean" because it is too competitive, and add "caribbean cruise." First we delete "caribbean" as a Seed Word...

1. Click All Keywords (this is always your "start over place").
2. Ensure that "caribbean" is showing in the Seed Word menu.
3. Click on Check all at the top of the MKL. Click on the link to go to the next page and click on Check all for those keywords. Repeat for every page.
4. When all the keywords are checked, select Delete Checked from the Select Action menu. This deletes all keywords that "belonged" to "Caribbean" and therefore deletes the Seed Word, too.

Now we will add "caribbean cruise" as a Seed Word...

1. Return to Brainstormer.
2. Click on Vertical Brainstorm > Singular AND Plural.
3. Enter "caribbean cruise" in STEP 3 and click on Brainstorm It!.

Repeat the 2 steps in the First Phase -- study the Real Supply and the Value Demand of this new Seed Word...

This new niche is winnable in terms of competition (i.e., its Real Supply is well under 200,000)...

It also has a lot of high Demand keywords (i.e., greater than 1,000)...

Now that we have deleted "caribbean" and brainstormed/added "caribbean cruise," let's see what we have by the end of Phase 1...

1. "anguilla" is winnable, with acceptable Demand.
2. "antigua" is winnable-but-difficult, with higher Demand. It needs at least a 20 hour per week time commitment for a year, although you will start to see income before that.
3. "caribbean cruise" is more winnable, with better-than-acceptable Demand. A good find.
   Note: Re-brainstorm and do the first two steps of this first phase for any new Seed Word before continuing to Phase 2.
4. "antigua and barbuda"
   Note: We have not re-brainstormed and performed Phase 1 analysis on this yet. We will continue with "antigua" for now. If it turns out to be too tough to win, we can delete it and repeat the process on "antigua and barbuda."

A Review of What We've Done in Phase 1

1. We sorted by Real Supply to do a quick check of the winnability of our 3 potential Site Concepts. "Caribbean" worried us, but we found a couple of other potential winners.
2. Next, we filtered by Value Demand (greater than 1,000) to get a quick idea of the depth (number of keywords with high Demand) and the intensity (how high) of the Demand for each of the 3 Site Concepts.

Both steps confirmed that "Caribbean" was just too competitive. But both also identified several potential new sub-niches for it. We focused on one, "Caribbean cruise," to show you how to repeat the process.

Phase 2, Step #1 -- Refine Your Value Demand in Search of "Demand Depth"

Let's re-use the Value Demand filter on "anguilla," "antigua" and "caribbean cruise" but with a lower number -- greater than 500. We are looking for Demand depth... a good number of keywords with sufficient Demand.

We get a total of 90 keywords -- 9 for "anguilla," 39 for "antigua," and 42 for "caribbean cruise."

If you repeat this process with a range of 250 to 500 for Value Demand, "anguilla" brings back 17, "antigua" brings back 38 keywords, and "caribbean cruise" brings back 54.

Note how deep each potential Site Concept goes... the number of acceptable keywords increases nicely as you "stretch" or "relax" your Value Demand.

So what's our conclusion here? Well, they are all good. "Caribbean cruise" has the most depth, but "anguilla" is looking good, and "antigua" is a happy medium.

However, there is a downside to "antigua." Yes, there is a lot of Demand, but Supply is also very high. So we decide to remove "antigua" since we're just not ready to commit that much time to winning a niche that is this competitive. Instead, we choose to narrow the Site Concept down to the sub-niche of "antigua and barbuda."

Repeat the Seed Word deletion process for "antigua." And then do a Singular OR Plural brainstorm for "antigua and barbuda" (which automatically adds it to your list of Seed Words).

Note: You'll see a warning message any time you try to brainstorm on three or more words. You can safely ignore the warning since the Seed Word you are using is the name of the islands.

Repeat the 3 steps above (evaluating Real Supply/competition, and assessing significant Value Demand, and then looking at the Demand depth).

Conclusions?

• This new niche has winnable Real Supply (Phase 1, Step #1)...

  

• It also has a few high Demand keywords (Phase 1, Step #2)...

  

• So far, so good. But it fails our "Demand depth test." It has the same 3 words with Demand greater than 500 as it had for greater than 1,000. There are no words with Demand between 500 and 1000! It indicates a lack of depth for good content opportunities, when compared to "anguilla" and "caribbean cruise."

  

Here is what we have done so far (mid Phase 2)...

• We narrowed down our 3 Site Concepts to one of the original 3 ("anguilla") and 2 new ones that were not originally foreseen ("caribbean cruise" and "antigua and barbuda").
• We eliminated "caribbean" as being flat-out too competitive, saving us a long, painful business failure. We finally turned down "antigua" due to a failure to fit within our Site Concept Tolerance Range. We found "caribbean cruise," which is proving up as a strong possibility. And other good possibilities ("caribbean weddings," "caribbean recipes," "antigua and barbuda") were also identified. For the purposes of this discussion, we're examining "antigua and barbuda."
• "Antigua and barbuda" is not looking as good as it first did, due to the low number of keywords with Demand greater than 500 ("shallow depth"). It may yet fit the bill if you determine that you don't have the combined time and interest for the others. (For that matter, so may "caribbean weddings" and "caribbean recipes.")

Next action...

Phase 2, Step #2 -- Refine Your Real Supply in Search of "Winnable Depth"

Now let's take a closer look at Real Supply for "winnable depth." We are looking for the number of reasonably profitable keywords in each niche that have acceptable competition and are relatively easy to "win for" (i.e., "winnable depth"). The higher the number of winnable keywords, the better our opportunity to win this niche.

1. Filter Real Supply with a range of 50 to 500. This filter usually brings back acceptable keywords that will serve as topics within our potential Site Concepts -- not our most important ones, but a good set of winnable keywords (i.e., good topics that may generate some of your earliest traffic, starting your growing traffic snowball).
2. Also set the Value Demand filter. Set it to greater than 250. Now we have the subset of words with reasonable Profitability -- Real Supply/Value Demand. We now have 31 keywords that pass these two filters...
3. Let's see how many belong to each Seed. Choose each Seed Word, one at a time, or enter each Seed Word in the Keyword filter and use "contains." We get 11 words for "anguilla," 1 for "antigua and barbuda" and 19 for "caribbean cruise."
4. If you would like to see the Profitability of each set of keywords, click on the Profitability label to sort that column.

Adjust the numbers of these filters if you want to explore further. For example, make the Real Supply range narrower, from 100 to 500, increase or decrease Value Demand, and compare those results with the ones from the first range.

"Caribbean cruise" has more keywords in this Supply range, but the Profitability for the "anguilla" keywords is slightly higher. So here is where your human judgement comes in. Do you go with more keywords with lower Profitability, or fewer keywords with higher Profitability? Which excites you more, Anguilla or Caribbean cruising?

"Antigua and barbuda," with only a single keyword here, is looking less likely to be your final Site Concept.

Let's progress to the final stage...

Phase 3 -- Determine Overall Depth

Select All in the Seed Word menu and click on All Keywords.

For this final phase, it's important to remember that each of the 3 Site Concepts used the "Site Concept Finder" (or a new Vertical brainstorm for a Site Concept that replaced a deleted Site Concept). So each should have brought back up to 333 keywords. Therefore...

An examination of the lowest Demand keywords will yield much "overall depth" information about each niche. Here's how...

First, click on each Seed Word in your Seed Word list. Did any Seed deliver far fewer keywords than the others (a lot less than 333 keywords). If so, that Seed is very shallow. (The combined Wordtracker and SBI! databases literally could find no more!)

Next, select All in the Seed Word menu to bring back all the keywords in your list. Then click twice on the Value Demand label to view the lowest Demand words at the top. Now examine these lowest-Demand keywords...

Note...

1. All these "bottom of the Demand barrel" keywords belong to "antigua and barbuda."
2. The Demand values here are very low.

You have to scroll all the way until Demand is over 40 before you start seeing some keywords that belong to other niches. You can test this observation by filtering Value Demand (choose "less than" and type in 40 -- they are all "antigua and barbuda" words). There is a big "depth gap" between "antigua and barbuda" and the other two Site Concepts.

At this point, you could delete "antigua and barbuda." But remember the Site Concept Tolerance Range? Key factors were your time availability, monetizability, passion, and knowledge. Those factors affect a decision that you might otherwise make purely on the basis of numbers. It's always wiser to put your efforts into winning a smaller niche that you love than struggling to compete in a niche that's too broad that you are lukewarm about. So...

If you only have 2-5 hours a week, and if you really know and love Antigua, this could be a nice little, profitable niche that you can win. Of course, "caribbean weddings" and "caribbean recipes" would also come back into consideration and may very well have more potential (all else being equal in terms of knowledge, passion, etc.).

But if you plan to devote, say 10 hours per week, to your site, "antigua and barbuda" limits the maximum compensation for this niche (unless you have a high-monetization plan such as selling villas, of course). There's just not enough good, in-demand content to build a business upon.

Let's stick with "antigua and barbuda" for now, for the sake of the following discussion. You'll see how a "smaller" niche may be the best choice. There's more to life and business than just the numbers. For now, though...

You now have a strong idea of the potential of each Site Concept Keyword. You have all the information needed to make the final decision, considering more than just numbers. It's time to...

Step 3 - Evaluate the Key Factors for Each Site Concept

You have all the key factors and guidelines to aid your human judgement in making your final Site Concept decision.

Before going any further...

Grab a pen and paper, or open a text file. Score the three potential Site Concepts out of 100 for each of the 7 factors outlined here. You will be using these numbers in Niche Choose It! (Step 4 below), if you should need to use that decision-making tool (optional but recommended).

#1) Overall Profitability Based on Keyword Research Results

Based on the analysis steps that you just completed, which Site Concept (i.e., which niche) is the most profitable. Ignore all other factors, such as how much time you plan to spend, how well you know or love the niche, etc. You'll factor those in next.

How many solidly profitable keywords does each have? (Remember... the Profitability numbers are useful, but use your judgement to make the final decisions.)

You need a nice mix of reasonably high-Demand words, even if they have fairly high Supply, a few gems (medium Demand, low Supply) and many interesting "narrow niche" words (lowish Demand and low Supply).

Those "narrow niche" words usually provide the opportunity to deliver great content. And they will be the first words with Top 10 rankings at the engines (unless you get lucky!). They "prime the traffic pump."

As you can see, there is no way to reduce keywords to a magic formula. Numbers are good guidelines. But they are not the "be-all, end-all." Human judgement, knowledge of your subject matter, and gut feeling rule.

Score each Site Concept for Overall Profitability and move on the next factor.... What else is important when picking your best Site Concept?

#2) Your Available Time

Score each Site Concept against how reasonable it is for you to master the niche, given your available time. For example, if you can only spend 2 hours per week on your site, you will do better, sooner, with "antigua and barbuda." So score it higher than "anguilla" and "caribbean cruise" (ex., 90 vs.50) since you are more likely to win at this smaller niche with 2 hours per week.

#3) Knowledge

Think about each keyword as the topic for a future Web page (since that is what it will become). Do you already know what you could write for those words? Obviously, lean towards the Site Concept that you know the best.

Real knowledge, straight out of your brain, shines through. If you have to research everything until you become an expert, that's a much more serious time commitment. It takes a long time to "shine" as someone who really knows what s/he is talking about. Have you really "been there, done that?"

#4) Passion

Just as important... which Site Concept excites you the most? Choose a less profitable Site Concept if the thought of building a site about it excites you much more! It will be fun to create interesting Web pages about the subject area and to do the necessary research to stay current.

#5) Theme "Sexiness"

It's not just your excitement that counts. Some Site Concepts are more apt to excite visitors. Trust your gut feel about which would excite visitors the most.

#6) Monetization Potential

Monetization potential is not the same as keyword profitability...

• Profitability looks at the Demand/Supply ratio of a keyword. It measures the reward/risk of each keyword. In other words, Demand indicates how much monetizable traffic you get if you get found for that keyword at the engines, while Supply is a measure of the difficulty of making that "if" occur (i.e., how hard it is to get found for that keyword).
• Monetization potential looks at how much money you are able to make from the many ways there are to earn an income from a Site Concept. The key term here is "potential"... you have to get found for many profitable keywords before you can realize that potential.

We have considered the former ("Overall Profitability") in the first of these 6 factors. Now we consider the latter ("Monetization")....

Look for a Site Concept that offers the potential for you to build several streams of income. C  T  P is useless if there is no M potential!

You must be able to Monetize your PREsold traffic. And the more ways to do that, the merrier.

You will cover these and other monetization models in more detail on DAY 4. Right now, consider the big picture. Be sure your "best Site Concept" has some excellent Monetization potential.

#7) Niche Depth

Niche Depth looks at the overall size of your niche, based on several related ideas.

First, how many keywords are there? A Site Concept with 300 keywords (after DAY 2) will produce a more substantial site than a niche that has only 175 keywords. The more content your site has, the more visitors it will receive, and the more opportunities you will have to earn an income from those visitors.

Second, how many keywords have high Value Demand? A Site Concept with 15 keywords with Value Demand above 1,000, and another 30 words above 500, means that this niche topic is something people are looking for. One with only 5 keywords above 1,000 and 15 more above 500 indicates a niche that's less popular. Your Phase 2, Step #1 numbers give a quick view of this Demand Depth.

How many keywords have reasonable competition (you can win at the Search Engines for those keywords)? If many of the keywords for a niche fall into the 50-500 range, then this Site Concept should let you reach close to the top of the engine rankings. A review of Phase 2, Step #2 numbers will reveal the Winnable Depth of each niche.

Third, how low does the Demand go? If it drops to 1 or 5 or 10 for a lot of keywords, then this Site Concept may not have enough to sustain it for the long run. If Demand drops to 40 or 50, and only for a few keywords, this niche likely has the "legs" to go the distance for you, developing into a site that draws large numbers of visitors. Phase 3 numbers show you this Overall Depth.

Your choice now may be obvious, based on the scoring and thinking you have just done. If so, congratulations! You are ready to move on to DAY 3, where you will build up a full list of keywords related to your niche. These keywords will be the topics of the Web pages that will become your site, which will drive your business.

Before you move to DAY 3... Are you unsure of your Site Concept choice? Do you want to double-check?...

Step 4 - Use Niche Choose It! to find the best Site Concept for you.

It's decision-making time!

The scores you recorded in Step 3 should result in a table that looks something like this...

	Anguilla	Caribbean cruise	Antigua and Barbuda
Overall Profitability Based on Keyword Research Results	95	95	70
Your Time	70	50	90
Knowledge	90	60	70
Passion	100	70	60
Theme "Sexiness"	95	85	85
Monetization Potential	90	90	80
Niche Depth	95	95	75

Once you have your grid set up and scored like this, you are ready to choose your best Site Concept. There are two ways you can do this, but the important point is that you really think about each of the 7 key factors.

You can compare the grid totals on your own and determine which Site Concept is best for you. Or bring your scores with you to Niche Choose It! and let it do the "heavy lifting" (as it weights your scores automatically and then displays results as bar graphs). Come back here after you decide on your best Site Concept.

Before you move on to DAY 3, delete the other two potential Site Concepts from your Master Keyword List. To delete them, simply...

1. Select one from the Seed Word drop-down menu.
2. Click on Check all to check all the checkboxes. Repeat for additional pages of keywords.
3. Select Delete Checked from the Select Action drop-down menu...

Why delete them now? Because it's important to focus on your #1 choice. If your #1 choice does not pan out on DAY 3 or 4, you can always re-brainstorm any of the other 2 or the others that you found along the way. It only takes a few minutes to re-brainstorm... now that you know how!

You will also need room to do some Lateral brainstorming, to expand your MKL with related keywords that do not contain the Seed Word.

Moving Forward...

Need help or advice about DAY 2?

You can also try one of these forums...

Using Brainstorm It!

Finding Your Niche (Day 2) Forum

Working With Your Master Keyword List

Interpreting Keyword Supply, Demand, Profitability

For quick access to other Forum FAQs, please use (and bookmark) this Directory.

Best advice?

Do not get hung up wanting more and more data. All you need is in front of you, right in your MKL. Yes, take your time and think about it.

And then keep moving forward -- pick one. It is NOT an irreversible decision. The next two DAYs will either confirm your choice or bring you back to try another. (The actual "final" decision only happens when you register your domain name, on DAY 5.)