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.

Ready?

Here we go. The "going" is about to get a bit heavier. That's normal. You are building a business here, a real business. And there are two fundamental laws that the Web does not suspend...

1. The Law of Gravity: Things still fall to the ground.
2. The Law of Business: It still takes work to build a real business with real equity. The good news is that SBI! does eliminate all the technology, accelerating your pace and allowing you to focus only on your business.

Proceed steadily step-by-step. Take your time. Remember, a "DAY" is just a metaphor in SBI!. You completed DAY 1 in mere minutes. DAY 2 may take days, even weeks. So don't worry if your head spins at first.

Take your time. Watch the Action Guide videos. Read the help. And click on the definition links where provided (click here for an example).

If you ever feel overwhelmed, that comes from wanting to do it all immediately. 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. There is a reason that the tortoise is the SBI! mascot.

"Tortoise It!"... and your business will indeed "resist gravity" and soar.

This TNT article will help dispel any mental blocks you may have about getting started...

http://sbitips.sitesell.com/get-started.html

So SBI! does help with both laws after all.

What Is a Site Concept?

First, a Site Concept is a keyword. You use it to write the content of your home page.

It is also 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").

On DAY 3, you will complete the brainstorm-and-research process of the Site Concept that you choose here on DAY 2. But first, now, let's find your Site Concept... your theme... your niche that you CAN master.

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! -- remember that 99% of small business sites fail, even the most gorgeous ones that cost $20,000 to build! So...

Tortoise It! You will pass them all.

SBI! ensures that you will do it well. You focus on business, while SBI! takes care of all the technical and tedious headaches. It shows you how to position and write your Site Concept so that you "own your space." Think you can't write? SBI! even shows you how to write to PREsell... with originality and flair, in your own voice.

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." Leave those super-broad themes to companies like expedia.com. 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).

Merely understand the above factors for now. When the time comes (at the end of this DAY), SBI! provides you with a foolproof tool (Niche Choose It!) to gather and evaluate all these factors and then find the best Site Concept for you.

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

Most people fail in any business because they don't plan adequately. If you pick the wrong concept for your site, if you develop the wrong topics for your Web pages... you'll get the wrong results...

No traffic = No income.

This will not be your fate. Let's get to work on your Best Site Concept Plan...

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, or record them into your cell phone, or type them into a journal on your computer. Make your list as long as you can. What do you know and love? What have you learned "on the job?" As you read the daily newspaper, or watch a talk show on TV, or chat with friends/colleagues, or browse a book store, keep your antennae up for new ideas.

Think... you may know so much about something that you overlook it.

For example, one SBIer once wrote to SiteSell Support to say that she knew very little about anything and had so little time because she spent most of each day taking care of her two bed-ridden, elderly parents!

Taking care of her aged parents!

Bingo!

Everyone Knows Something About Something

What's under your nose?

Three Site Concepts? Why Three?

What if you only have one idea for a niche? Well, you won't have anything to compare against. In general, it's best to develop a "top 3" and then use Brainstorm It! and Niche Choose It! to compare and pick the best.

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.

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. Without traffic, you might as well not have a Web site. You'd be invisible (just like 99.9% of non-SBI! sites)!

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

  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."

  "But how do I know whether it's too narrow or too broad if I'm just starting out?"

  Good question! Use your common sense and knowledge of each niche, of course. And there is one good technique that helps, too!

  Let's show you how to get your "just-right" niche...

Do Some Quick Research Before Brainstorm It!

Here are some common scenarios that deserve some "quick and dirty," pre-Brainstorm It! research...

• "Help! How do I know if it's TOO NARROW or TOO BROAD?"

  Free keyword research tools enable you to quickly "measure" how broad/narrow your potential Site Concepts are. Use these to quickly check and refine a Site Concept idea to just the right level.

  Unsure about how narrow/broad your idea is?...

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

  Important Caveat

  Do not take numbers too seriously. Your human brain must rule!

• Do You Have a Zillion Ideas?

  Too many ideas flying around in your head? In love with them all? Can't narrow your list to 3 Site Concepts? Once again...

  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?

  You've read this idea-boosting article and you're still stuck for good ideas?

  Search It! has a few "tricks" 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)

Yes, it's time for Brainstorm It! ("BI!").

You will 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.

Let's get started!

Brainstorm Keywords for Your Three Site Concepts

Brainstorm It! is the best keyword brainstorming and researching tool in the world, loaded with dynamic, robust resources. It's composed of two major sections...

1. Brainstormer (where you do the actual brainstorming)
2. Master Keyword List (where you do further research, and analysis).

1. Brainstormer

Time to use the 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).

If you were already using Brainstorm It! and now you don't see its Web page, it is likely tucked "underneath" this Action Guide page, or in a different tab if you are using tabbed browsing.

Brainstormer offers a variety of powerful brainstorming resources. 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.)

That's all there is to it. 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.

As soon as you make your STEP 2 selection, STEP 3 appears immediately below it. Before doing STEP 3, review the in-context help in the gray area on the right.

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...

The keywords just added by your query will always appear in blue, as in the screenshot above. If you log out of Brainstorm It! and then return, all the keywords will be black. And if you run a new brainstorm (ex., on DAY 3, you will use the Lateral Brainstormer), the existing keywords will turn black, and the newest set will be blue.

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

Congratulations! You have made great progress. You now have a Master Keyword List (similar to the one in the screenshot above), an excellent list of keywords, all related (vertically) to one of the three Site Concept Keywords that you entered.

The Master Keyword List (MKL) is the "analytical half" of Brainstorm It!. It is where you filter, sort, analyze and delete the keywords generated and researched by the creative half, Brainstormer.

Your DAY 2 goal is to identify your best Site Concept. You started the process by finding some great keywords with Brainstormer. Now it's time to analyze those keywords.

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.

Working across all 3 Site Concepts at once saves you time by letting you compare the strengths and weaknesses of all 3 niches at the same time. There's no need to flip back and forth between Seed Words. You will get a clearer picture faster.

If it turns out during your review that one or more of your potential Site Concepts do not meet your criteria, you can delete them (we will do it together later) and add others, including sub-niches from those same Site Concepts. For example, "Caribbean" may be too broad, while "Caribbean cruise" may be a better choice.

And if, at the end of your review, 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.

Follow this unique approach carefully. If you do that, you will lead yourself to your perfect niche. Here is a summary of the 3 main phases of analysis you'll do as you narrow down to your best Site Concept. Details will follow...

First Phase of Analysis (Big Picture)

• Study the Real Supply of your 3 Site Concepts. Eliminate any niche that will be too difficult to win (i.e., there are too many competitors) or that is too narrow (there are not enough competitors, which usually indicates that there is not enough money to be made in that niche).
• Examine the Value Demand for your Site Concept and its related keywords. This tells you how much Demand there is for each niche. A good number of high Demand keywords indicates that there is a lot of interest in this theme, while a low Demand indicates little interest in this niche (or that it has not hit the mainstream yet).

Second Phase of Analysis (Winnable Depth)

• Refine your Value Demand, using a lower Demand range of numbers (provided later). This tells you if there are enough keywords with sufficient Demand to build out your site.
• Refine your Real Supply, using a lower Supply number (provided later). This tells you how many words there are for each Site Concept that are easily winnable due to minimal real competition.

Third Phase of Analysis (Overall Depth)

Jump to the tail end of Value Demand to see how many very low Demand keywords there are, and to see how low they go. The Site Concept Finder brainstorm started this process for you by culling out the lowest Demand words, bringing back only the top 333 keywords from a combination of SBI!'s unique keyword database and Wordtracker's database.

Check for "low-Demand keywords." The ideal here is to have no low-Demand keywords found by this analysis (i.e., all keywords present have higher Demand values). Having none or the fewest low-Demand keywords indicates that this Site Concept has more topics that are sought after than the other Site Concepts have.

After the 3 phases of analysis, you will probably be confident about the best-fit Site Concept for your business. A quick double-check using the optional Niche Choose It! (invaluable if you have any doubts that are "too close to call") will confirm your decision. Details below.

If nothing screams "Pick me!" then simply repeat the process with three new ideas or Seed Words.

Time to get started on our 3 phase process. The First Phase 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 in this step is to see if you can quickly 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.

The first step is easy...

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 parameters 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.

Excellent progress!

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

What we're looking for here is the number of keywords with high Value Demand numbers.

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. This tool does some "heavy lifting" during the simultaneous comparisons of all potential Site Concepts.

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...

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. For example...

If you have limited time and aren't interested in cruises, "caribbean islands" is an intriguing possibility. Good Demand, limited Supply. It may take some brainstorming for how to structure this site, though, since it would be hard to rank highly for each island. But a vertical (Singular AND Plural) and a Lateral Brainstormer may just give you some good ideas.

The key here is not to write about each particular island, but to find enough to say about "Caribbean islands" in general, and topics related to them (ex., Caribbean weather, tropical food, etc.). An interesting, but dangerous concept to manage due to its general and competitive (broad) nature.

"The 5,000 Move"

If you really like the idea of doing something on "caribbean" in general, run the Value Demand filter for Caribbean words (enter "caribbean" in the Keyword filter box, using "contains") with a Demand greater than 5,000. Then scan that list of keywords, sorting by Value Demand like this...

Caribbean weddings! Wow, great potential (at first glance). Good Demand, low Supply.

Caribbean recipes! Anyone for roti?

These are smaller niches, but they look winnable and profitable. If they turn you on and if you know something about them, they may be a great starting point for a new Vertical brainstorm after you delete "Caribbean." They may or may not yield gold...

OK, back to our analysis...

Comparing Antigua with the remaining Site Concept, "anguilla," and the "antigua and barbuda" subset, we find that...

• "antigua" keywords have higher Demand than those for either "anguilla" or "antigua and barbuda"
• 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.

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.

But depending on your time availability and interest level, you could have done the same with whichever appealed to you the most. You could have even decided to drop Anguilla and Antigua and decide between "Caribbean cruise," "Caribbean weddings," and "Caribbean recipes."

By the way, make a note about all possible Site Concepts. You just may come back to them after you do a detailed Monetization study on DAY 4.

Solid, methodical progress! Now we're ready for the next phase.

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 32 for "caribbean cruise."

Now we'll see how steadily the number of keywords with solid Value Demand grows for each potential Site Concept. Repeat the above 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... does the number of acceptable keywords increase nicely as you "stretch" 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 has one high Demand keyword (Phase 1, Step #2)...

  

• And it fails our "Demand depth test." It has only same 3 words with Demand greater than 500. There are just two 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.")

Well done. You seem to be making a habit of relentless progress!

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.

Yet more progress! You are definitely forming opinions and drawing near the end of your decision-making process.

Phase 3 -- Determine Overall Depth

Select All in the Seed Word menu and click on All Keywords. By now you know this clears your MKL, bringing back all words for all seeds and clearing all sorts, filters, etc.

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! database 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're done! Great job!

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

How do you decide which Site Concept is best? There is no magic formula, but you do have all the key factors and guidelines to aid your human judgement in making your final decision. And, as you will see in Step 4, you have an optional tool called Niche Choose It!, which will help you make that decision, should you need it.

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 need to use that decision-making tool.

Don't gloss over this. Give each factor careful consideration and score each, out of 100, seriously...

#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.)

If it's a new and growing area, accept lower thresholds, sometimes substantially lower (depending on your estimate of its future potential). And if Supply is generally much lower for one Site Concept, accept lower Demand, too. But not too low...

For example, you may have 50 Keywords with super-high Profitability. But if they are all high because Supply is near-zero, then Demand might be quite low as well. That means that you'll have many Top 10 Search Engine rankings... but there may not be enough of a market to drive your overall business.

On the other hand, if your MKL is overloaded with high-Supply keywords, (ex., your Site Concept has Supply over 200,000 and lots of others in the 100,000-200,000 range), your Site Concept may be too competitive. Consider narrowing it down, using a keyword in the 30,000-70,000 range as a Site Concept.

By this point, of course, you should be grading "shades of gray," having eliminated Site Concepts that were clearly out of your range (ex., "too narrow" or "too broad"). But if you still have one that's "out of whack"... whack it!

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

As was mentioned earlier, it is important to consider how much time you are willing to dedicate to your SBI! business. Be realistic. If things go as well as they should, you can always start another site, or figure out a way to grow this one further or to monetize it better than you may see today.

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.

It's not work if it's fun.

#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.

It's easy to PREsell your way to a strong "Brand of One" with an exciting theme. Or make a niche exciting. For example, here's how one SBIer made knitting memorable... and important.

We'll cover this more on DAYs 5 and 6 and in Make Your Content PREsell!

Do you have an exciting niche? Can you make it so?

#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. How many of the following could you (eventually) implement on each Site Concept, and with what kind of financial potential?...

• Represent the products/services of related, non-competing online businesses (i.e., affiliate income).
• Partner with an offline business, sending them customers, on a pay-per-click, per-lead, per-sale, or per-month basis (ex., send visitors to a real estate agent in Anguilla).
• Sell your hard good or e-book.
• Earn income by placing advertising on your site, such as Google AdSense, or by selling advertising directly. (Guess what? As your site grows, advertisers will approach you!)
• Sell your services (ex., develop clients for your copywriting or java-programming business).
• Supplement/build your local offline business.
• Attract more bidders for your eBay auctions.
• Build warm leads for your Network Marketing ("MLM") venture.
• Rent -- anything from heavy equipment to extras for movies to your own Anguilla villa.
• Traffic -- send traffic to your own e-commerce business (ex., your Yahoo! store or e-commerce site).
• Become an SBI! professional and build successful sites for others.
• Tell your own SBI! story and earn SiteSell 5 Pillar affiliate income!

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 that your chosen Site Concept really does beat out the other two?

Niche Choose It! is objective and sophisticated decision-making software. It leaves no room for bias, no room for error...

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

OK, 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. Is the score you gave each factor accurate? Were you honest with yourself when you scored the Knowledge and Passion factors?

You can compare the grid totals on your own and determine which Site Concept is best for you. But Niche Choose It!'s software uses decision-making logic and will not only make a more accurate decision, but will lead you through the reasoning in a more rigorous manner.

So Niche Choose It!, while optional, is highly recommended.

Bring your scores with you to Niche Choose It! and let it do all the "heavy lifting." Click on the Quick Tour Me Through An Example button...

That automatically takes you through a sample niche-choosing exercise. Follow the exercise through to its conclusion.

Then do it "for real." The easiest way is to simply re-use the example and change the entries as you go along.

In Step 2, enter your potential Site Concepts. Although there is room for five (and you can even add more to compare), enter the three that you currently have.

In Step 3, enter the factors above (or others, if you like) and weight how important each one is to you.

In Step 4, enter all of the scores from your grid above. By now, Niche Choose It! should look like this...

A final click takes you to the fifth and final step which answers your all-important question, "Which Site Concept should I choose for my new SBI! site?"

And the winner is Anguilla! This Netrepreneur has done the perfect research, analyzed it, entered her analysis into Niche Choose It!, and emerged with the perfect Site Concept for her.

Time for you to do the same.

Go to Niche Choose It! and find your best Site Concept.

Come back here after you're finished with Niche Choose It! and you know your best Site Concept.

...

...

Back? Great! I hope Niche Choose It! cleared things up for you. That little module has a funny way of helping matters make sense.

And that brings us to the end of DAY 2. You have systematically gathered data and analyzed all factors completely to select the most profitable-looking and interesting/fun and "monetizable" Site Concept from your three.

Where was I? Oh yes, you have chosen your Site Concept. Now it's time to move on to DAY 3. But before you do, 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.

Advance to DAY 3.