Brainstorm It! -- The Big Picture
Just Like Your Brain
Brainstorm It! (BI!) is both a creativity-booster with tremendous brainstorming abilities and a tool that saves you weeks of tedious data-gathering and keyword analysis! It has two parts, equivalent to the two sides of your brain...
- Brainstormer -- the right side of BI!'s brain "gets the creative ideas."
- Master Keyword List -- the left side gives you the functions to analyze and manage them.
When you open Brainstorm It!, you land on the Brainstormer page. In the top right, you'll find your name, the words "No Domain Registered," and your order number. Once you register your domain name (DAY 5), your domain name will appear there, replacing "No Domain Registered" and the order number.
Below that, you'll find links to Find It!, SBI! Support HQ and the Brainstorm It! Forum. Once you've registered your domain name and built your home page, you'll also have links to your Webmail and Site Central.
Just below those links are links to Brainstormer and the Master Keyword List. All of these links are common to both modules.
Brainstormer
Brainstormer is the tool you use to create your list of keywords related to one to three Seed Words, which are potential Site Concepts.
Any time you see a word or phrase in blue on a gray background, click on it to open a "sticky" with a definition or more information.
When you enter a Seed Word and use one of the Brainstormer queries, you get hundreds of possible topics, also known as Specific Keywords, related to that Seed Word.
Keyword: The term a surfer enters into a Search Engine when searching for something. These would be words like...
"Anguilla" and "Anguilla villas" and "Caribbean vacations."
(The term "keyword" includes single words as well as multi-word phrases. Most searches are not actually single-word searches. Why? Because most searchers quickly learn to enter two or more words in their searches to get better (more precise) results. We call that entry a "keyword" even if it has 5 words in it.)
A keyword is also the topic for the content of a Web page. All the other words on that page are "content"... information about that keyword/topic.
We call the keyword that you make the topic of a Web page the Specific Keyword for that page.
If you'd like more information about keywords, click here.
Brainstorm Seed Words (shortened to just Seed Words) are words that you are considering using as potential Site Concepts (initially), or for broad subsections of your site (after you have chosen your Site Concept). We call the keyword that you enter into Brainstormer when performing a Vertical Brainstorm or a Lateral Brainstorm a "Seed Word" because it "seeds" a storm of keywords.
You will research the Seed Words in Step 3 of the Brainstormer process. In the Master Keyword List, each of the Seed Words you researched will appear in the Seed Word drop-down menu, along with All, which shows every keyword regardless of Seed Word, and Added Keywords, which shows all unassociated keywords.
Brainstormer queries are divided into three types...
- The Seed Generator brainstorm generates words that you can use as potential Site Concepts for your first (or second or third) SBI! site. These are all words with winnable competition and reasonable demand.
- Vertical brainstorms generate keywords that contain the Seed Word (ex., if you enter "anguilla," all brainstormed words will contain "anguilla" in them).
- Lateral brainstorms generate keywords that are related to the Seed Word but do not contain it (ex., if you enter "anguilla," a lateral keyword is "caribbean island").
There are 3 Vertical brainstorms...
- The Site Concept Finder lets you research 3 potential Site Concepts at one time. It brings back up to 333 keywords for each of those 3 Seed Words (up to 500 each if you enter 2 Seed Words), first pruning out those with the lowest Demand (more about that in the next section). You use this brainstorm in DAY 2 to determine your Site Concept.
- The Singular AND Plural brainstorm lets you research other potential Site Concepts (Day 2) and expand the list of keywords for your chosen Site Concept (Day 3). Use this query if the Seed Word you want to research has both a singular and a plural form.
- The Singular OR Plural brainstorm, which you use with a Seed Word that has only a singular or a plural form (ex., mouse/mice), also lets you research other potential Site Concepts (Day 2) and expand the list of keywords for your chosen Site Concept (Day 3).
There are 2 Lateral brainstorms...
- In DAY 3, the Lateral Brainstormer brings back keywords from the top 200 sites found at Google for your chosen Site Concept.
- Also in DAY 3, you can use the Ultimate Outside Lateralizer if you don't have a lot of keywords for your Site Concept. It visits up to 2,500 sites via Yahoo! and brings back keywords found in those sites.
You can use any of the brainstorms in any order you like, but we recommend you follow the proven brainstorming and analysis steps outlined in DAYs 2 and 3 of the Action Guide. Need a quick refresher? Click here to watch the videos for both of these DAYs in the Action Guide.
When you've completed your brainstorming process you'll have all the keywords and data you need to begin preparing your site's Content Blueprint. You do that in the Master Keyword List...
Master Keyword List
The Master Keyword List (also known as the MKL) is the analytical, left brain part of BI!. It's where you...
- filter, sort and analyze the keywords generated by Brainstormer
- delete keywords, where applicable
- export keywords to your desktop, if you want to print and study them offline.
Each time you use Brainstormer, you end up at your updated Master Keyword List (MKL). The newly added words appear in blue at the top of the list, which holds a maximum of 1,000 keywords.
You can work with all 3 Seed Words at once, or you can work with just one of them. Your choice.
In DAY 2, you will filter, sort and analyze the keywords to examine the Value Demand and the Real Supply for each of your potential Site Concepts. At the end of DAY 2, you will select your Site Concept, based on the analyses you have performed.
In DAY 3, you will continue to add (and delete) keywords to your MKL, as you start to develop your site's Content Blueprint. By the end of DAY 3, your blueprint will be complete enough for you to...
- start planning monetization options (DAY 4)
- then register your domain name (DAY 5), and
- start building your site (DAY 6).
Value Demand is a combination of how often people search for a particular keyword and how monetizable or commercial that keyword is. The best words (i.e., the highest Value Demand) have a high search volume and are highly commercial.
This measure of Demand is called "Value Demand" because it both provides a better estimate of Demand and includes a reflection of how important the Demand for each keyword is, in terms of its commercial potential.
Real Supply is a score for a keyword that indicates how competitive that keyword is, compared to the others in your Master Keyword List. It provides a rough idea of how difficult it will be to rank in the Top 10 at the Search Engines.
The higher the number, the more competitive the situation. This measure of Supply is called "Real Supply" because it provides a true evaluation of competition for each keyword. More on this below.
Time to wrap up this overview...
Right Brain (Brainstormer) and Left Brain (MKL)
Together, Brainstormer and your Master Keyword List help you...
- identify the best Site Concept ("theme") for you
- brainstorm that concept to find related topics ("Specific Keywords")
- determine the Value Demand, Real Supply, and Profitability of those topics
- investigate and plan your monetization mix
- refine/optimize your final Site Concept
- develop a preliminary, 3-tier Content Blueprint for your site
- find your perfect domain name (which you register on DAY 5).
The Most Important Advice for Using Brainstorm It!?
Take your time. You'll soon know your list of keywords like the back of your hand. You'll have loads of great ideas for your site, its content, and its structure.