Master Keyword List
The "Other Half" of Brainstorm It!
After you perform a Brainstormer query, you end up at the Master Keyword List ("MKL"), which contains all the keywords brought back by every Brainstormer query.
As well, it hosts a set of tools that let you filter, sort, analyze and delete those keywords.
Other features allow you to export all or some of your keywords to your desktop to print and study offline, and to create online notes about content or monetization ideas.
The MKL can look overwhelming, especially when it's filled with 500 or more keywords.
In reality, the basic tools are simple to use. After you've completed the MKL tour and you've used the tools a bit, they'll become second nature to you.
And remember...
DAYs 2-4 of the Action Guide show you how to effectively use the Master Keyword List to determine your Site Concept, build your Content Blueprint and monetize your niche.
This help is divided into two parts...
- Tour of the MKL, an overview of each part and how it functions.
- Getting the Most Out of the MKL, which walks you through how to use each part most effectively.
Ready to start the tour? Let's go!
Tour of the MKL
Seed Word Menu
The Seed Word Menu is your main management tool in the MKL. Every word or phrase that you run a Vertical or Lateral brainstorm on becomes a Seed Word, and appears in this menu.
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.
When you click on the Seed Word drop-down menu in the MKL, you will see every Seed Word you researched, along with All, which shows every keyword regardless of Seed Word, and Added Keywords, which shows all unassociated keywords that were added individually (see the next section, Add Keyword Tool).
Add Keyword Tool
The Add Keyword tool lets you add individual keywords to your MKL without making them a Seed Word.
Brainstorm It! also adds the keyword's Value Demand and Real Supply, and delivers the resulting Profitability. Adding a keyword uses the Wordtracker system, but does not charge you a WT credit.
Clicking on the Add Keyword button (screenshot above) opens the tool (screenshot below), where you can associate the new keyword to an existing Seed Word, or leave it unassociated. For example, add "anguillita island" as part of the "anguilla" Seed Word (more details in the Getting the Most Out of the MKL section).
Clicking on Add Keyword again, or on the white X on the red circle, closes the tool.
Filter Tool
The Filter tool lets you quickly find and display subgroups of keywords in your MKL. Your filtering options include...
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an alphanumeric filter, used in the Keyword and Notepad columns. This lets you filter keywords and notepads to include or exclude certain words or numbers (ex., find every keyword that contains the word "villas," or every keyword that has a notepad containing the word "monetization").
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a numeric filter, used in the Value Demand, Real Supply and Profitability columns. This lets you search for certain numeric values (ex., all keywords with Value Demand greater than 2,000).
There are 6 functions you can choose from. They are...
Greater than presents all keywords with greater than a certain number -- ex., greater than 5000 brings back every keyword with Demand (or Supply, or Profitability) from 5001 and up.
Less than gives you all keywords with less than a certain number -- ex., less than 500 returns every keyword with Supply from 1 to 499.
Range returns all keywords that fall within the range that you specify -- ex., a "from" of 100 and a "to" of 4500 returns all keywords that have a Supply of at least 100 and no greater than 4,500.
Highest x% gives you that percentage of the keywords that have the highest numbers -- ex., "highest 25%" of 500 keywords will return the 125 with the highest Demand (500 x .25).
Lowest x% provides that percentage of the keywords that have the lowest numbers -- ex., "lowest 25%" of 500 keywords will return the 125 with the lowest Supply (500 x .25).
Percent range will bring back that percentage of the keywords in the range you enter -- ex., "25% to 75%" of 500 keywords returns the 250 with the intermediate Profitability that you enter (500 x (.75 - .25), or 500 x .5).
Filtering does not delete any of your keywords. It simply hides words temporarily while you study the remaining words. Only you can delete keywords (when you choose to).
So don't worry when some keywords disappear as you apply filters. What you'll see are the keywords that have sifted through your filter(s). The others are still there, and can be brought back for your review by clicking on All Keywords, which is explained in the next section.
Clicking on the Filter button (shown in the screenshot above) displays the filter functions inside the MKL table (screenshot below)...
Filtering occurs immediately after you enter a word or number, so there is nothing to click.
Columns
The Customize Columns tool allows you to display only the columns you want to look at. Combine this with the Save Custom Task tool (below) to create tasks that hide particular columns when you only want to study certain information.
Save Custom Task
The Save Custom Task tool allows you to build your own tasks. Want to view Solid Potential keywords with a different sort, or a different sort order? Create a custom task for it. Or, when you want to study only the numbers, hide the Notepad, WWW, Site Info and Search It! columns. Then create a custom task that stores those settings.
All Keywords
All Keywords is a pre-set task that lets you quickly clear any filtering you may have applied to a set of keywords. This function works for any manual filtering you set yourself, and for any of the other pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive, and Solid Potential) and customization of those tasks.
Clicking on All Keywords clears the filtering, and returns all the keywords for the selected Seed Word (or the entire MKL if you selected All in the Seed Word menu). It also switches to the default sort, which is Keyword, A-Z (more on sorting below).
Pre-Set Tasks
As mentioned above, there are three other pre-set tasks, all of which work in the background (to see the task functions, click on the Filter button)...
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Lower Profitability, which works to show you all keywords that are at the low end of profitability. This means words that have a high Supply and a low Demand. They are sorted by lowest Profitability.
The Lower Profitability task is pre-set to bring back the 50% of keywords with the highest Supply. It then filters those keywords to bring back the 30% with the lowest Demand. You end up with 15% of the original number of keywords (.5 x .3 = .15), all with high Supply and low Demand (which equals low Profitability).
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from highest x% to percent range) or the criteria (numbers). For example, you can change the Real Supply filter from 50% to 40% and change the Value Demand filter from 30% to 25%. This will bring back 10% of your keywords (.4 x .25 = .10), all with high Supply and low Demand.
You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear all the filters, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
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General Competitive, which displays all keywords that have a very high Supply (a lot of competition from other Web sites), and thus are very hard to win, and high Demand. These are usually very general keywords (ex., one word keywords like "travel"). They are sorted by highest Real Supply.
The General Competitive task is pre-set to bring back the 20% of keywords with the highest Supply. It then filters those keywords to bring back the 20% with the highest Demand. You end up with 4% of the original number of keywords (.2 x .2 = .04), all with very high Supply and very high Demand.
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from highest x% to percent range) or the criteria (numbers). You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear all the filters, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
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Solid Potential gives keywords that have mid-range Supply (not too much competition, but enough to tell you that the keyword is popular), and have high Demand. High Demand and mid-range Supply keywords are the ones with solid potential, the ones you'll want to focus your site on. They are sorted by highest Profitability.
The Solid Potential task is pre-set to exclude the top and bottom 20% of Supply, leaving only keywords in the 20% to 80% range. It then filters those words, returning only the ones with the highest 60% of Demand. You end up with 36% of the original number of keywords (.6 x .6 = .36), all with higher Demand and mid-range Supply.
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from percentt ramge to highest x%) or the criteria (numbers). You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear all the filters, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
Clicking on any task button immediately runs the pre-set filters for that task.
The pre-set filtering numbers in each task can be changed. Click on the Filter button (beside the Add Keyword button) to display the filter functions. Delete the pre-set number and enter the number you want to use.
Important Option
If you're using 2 or more filters (with a pre-set task or custom task, or manually), you can remove one of the filters with a single click. Clicking on any clear link (see the screenshot below) lets you remove that filter from the process. If you were using two filters, you would only have one after clicking on the clear link. If you were using three filters, you would only have two after the click.
If you want to keep the filter but change the number (or word), click in the box and delete the existing characters. Then add the new ones.
You may find that some keywords appear in the results of both the Lower Profitability task and the Solid Potential task. Why? Because of the overlap in the percentages used in these pre-set tasks.
For example, since Lower Profitability finds the 50% of all keywords with the highest Supply, and Solid Potential finds the mid-range of all keywords (20% to 80%), the same keywords can appear in the 50% to 80% range. Using those keywords, those at the high end of the lowest 30% Demand (Lower Profitability) may also be at the low end of the highest 60% Demand for words returned by the Solid Potential task.
Check/Uncheck All, Select Action, Delete and Export
The top left corner of the keyword table has several keyword management tools...
Check/Uncheck All
To delete any keyword, or to export checked keywords, each keyword must have a check in the checkbox (more on deleting and exporting in a moment). You can add checks individually, or click on Check all to add one to every keyword on the page. Uncheck all removes all the checks on the page.
When you Check all, SBI! checks only the keywords in the current set of keywords.
For example, if you checked all the keywords generated by the Seed Word "caribbean," no other keywords are checked (ex., those generated by "anguilla" are left unchecked). Unchecked words are not affected by any further actions.
Checking and unchecking must be done on each page of keywords. There is no function that adds and removes checks across all MKL pages at once. However, as you advance from page to page, your checks (and unchecks) from previous pages are remembered.
To quickly delete most of the keywords on a page, use Check all to check all of them, then uncheck the ones you want to keep. Delete the ones with checks.
Select Action
The Select Action drop-down menu contains 7 tools that let you decide what to do with your keywords.
Delete Checked
To prevent accidental deletion of all your keywords, there is no Delete All function. You can delete only keywords that you have checked. And Check all works page-by-page only, also to protect you from deleting keywords that you may not yet have studied.
If you check individual keywords, sort them to the top to ensure you checked only those keywords you want to delete (more on sorting in Getting the Most Out of the MKL).
Deleting all the keywords associated with a Seed Word is the only way to remove that Seed Word from the menu.
Export
There are several export options, starting with the fastest and simplest...
- Export All (with the associated data for each keyword, or without -- kw only). One click and you've exported your keywords. You'll receive them sorted alphabetically. If you want them sorted in a different order (ex., by Profitability), use your spreadsheet's sort feature to sort them by the applicable column.
- Export Current All the keywords currently displaying in the MKL will be exported, with or without the data. Simply select a Seed Word and/or use a filter or pre-set task. Then export the keywords that appear, including ones on additional pages. You'll receive them sorted alphabetically. If you want them sorted in a different order (ex., by Real Supply), use your spreadsheet's sort feature to sort them by the applicable column.
- Export Checked Add a check to each keyword you want to export, with or without the data. If you use this option, sort all the checked keywords to the top to ensure you checked only those keywords you want to export (more on sorting in Getting the Most Out of the MKL). You'll receive the keywords sorted alphabetically. If you want them sorted in a different order (ex., by Value Demand), use your spreadsheet's sort feature to sort them by the applicable column.
Number of Keywords, Page Navigation and Rows/Page
At the top of the MKL table is the number of keywords, page navigation and a menu to choose the number of rows to show per page. Page navigation is dependent on the number of rows per page (and the number of keywords you have).
Number of Keywords
The MKL always tells you how many keywords you are currently seeing in your list. The message you see will be similar to the screenshot below...
... which indicates that this particular list is showing 998 words out of a total of 998, and that the maximum allowed is 1000.
When you select a Seed Word, the number of keywords displayed in the MKL is reduced. The message that you see will then change from the total number of keywords to a smaller number. Using the example above, the message would then say "333 of 998 keywords."
Rows/Page
You can select to show 50 rows per page, 100, or 250. Selecting 50 means you have fewer keywords per page to scroll through, but more pages of keywords to look at. Selecting 250 per page makes each page 2.5 - 5 times longer, but reduces the number of pages. Play around with the number of rows until you find the number that you prefer to work with.
Page Navigation
The minimum number of pages you can have in your MKL is 1 (unless it's empty), and the maximum is 20 (1,000 keywords divided by 50 rows per page). You will always see the first and last page number. And every number is a link to that particular page. Where applicable, you will also see Previous and Next links.
To reach pages where you only see "...," click on Previous or Next until you reach the page you want.
The screenshot above shows the number 2 in bold. This indicates that page 2 is the current page. The last number is 17, which indicates that there are 17 pages of keywords. And the rows per page is set to 50. This indicates that there are at least 801 keywords in the MKL. (If rows per page is 50, 17 pages would indicate that there are at least 801 keywords, but no more than 850.)
Now we come to the MKL table itself, where your keywords and their data are displayed.
There are 8 columns, each providing different information. As you'll see in the screenshot below, the Keyword, Value Demand, Real Supply, Profitability, Notepad and Site Info column labels are in blue. The blue indicates that you can sort the information in those columns. You can also sort the checks column (up and down arrows label on the far left).
We'll discuss sorting in detail in the next section, Getting the Most Out of the MKL.
Keyword Column
The MKL has three different keyword presentations...
- After your very first brainstorm, all the keywords (and their numbers) appear in blue, sorted alphabetically A-Z.
- After your next query, the new keywords are in blue, above all the keywords previously brainstormed, which are now black. Each group is sorted alphabetically, A-Z.
- When you log into Brainstorm It! again, all of your keywords are black, and they are all sorted alphabetically, A-Z.
Value Demand, Real Supply and Profitability Columns
These three columns display numbers generated by your Brainstormer queries.
The higher the Value Demand, the better the keyword.
The opposite is true for Real Supply -- the lower the supply, the better the keyword. However, if the Real Supply is too low for a particular keyword, it may not be monetizable.
Profitability, which is determined by dividing Value Demand by Real Supply and multiplying that number by 1,000, is best when it's highest.
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 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.
The Profitability of each keyword is its Value Demand divided by its Real Supply, multiplied by 1,000. The ideal keyword has high Value Demand and low Real Supply. The more keywords (for a given Site Concept) that have higher Value Demand and lower Real Supply (and therefore higher Profitability), the better is the "Overall Profitability" of that Site Concept.
Important: This is not an absolute, just an indication. Use your human judgement to make the final decision -- do not become number-bound.
Notepad Column
The Notepad is a very useful place to store your ideas.
A click on the white Notepad icon opens a new Web page with a form to enter your notes for that keyword (maximum 1,024 characters). When finished, a click on the Save Notes button saves your notes and closes the popup window, leaving you back at your MKL.
This notepad's icon will now be yellow, with a check instead of a pen. This indicates that you have notes saved here. Click on the yellow notepad at any time to review these notes or add to/modify them.
WWW Column
Clicking on the www icon for a particular keyword opens a new browser window. Brainstorm It! retrieves the first Search Engine Results Page (listings 1 to 10) from Google, Yahoo! Search and Bing (formerly Live Search), and displays them in a framed window.
Site Info Column
Site Info returns a lot of valuable information for the top 10 sites about a particular keyword. It also provides information about up to 10 more sites that are related to each of the top 10.
Clicking on the Site Info icon opens a new window. Brainstorm It! then collects and displays the information for each of the 10 sites. This information includes...
- The Title of the home page
- The URL of the home page as a live link that will take you to the page
- The Alexa Rank
- Contact info for the Webmaster
- Inbound Links for that site (links that point to that home page)
- Sites with high Google PageRank that link to this home page
- The Description of the home page
- Information about each of the 10 sites related to this home page.
Search It! Column
The Search It! tool lets you perform keyword-related searches directly from your MKL. When you click on any of the three icons for a particular keyword, Search It! opens in a new window, with that keyword already entered.
- The first icon searches Wikipedia for content ideas for that keyword.
- The second icon searches flickr for photos that have been tagged with that keyword.
- The third icon uses the Google Traffic Estimator to determine the cost of AdWords ads for that keyword. Note: due to the way the Traffic Estimator works, you will have to enter the keyword in the tool itself. Search It! cannot enter it for you.
This brings us to the end of the Tour of the MKL. Next, we discuss Getting the Most Out of the MKL for your optimal business-building results.
Getting the Most Out of the MKL
Your DAY 2 goal is to choose your best Site Concept. Your DAY 3 goal is to build out your list of keywords related to that Site Concept, and to begin to build your site's Content Blueprint. In this section, we discuss how to use the MKL's tools to achieve your goals.
Before we get started, here's an important piece of advice...
Manage your MKL immediately after each brainstorm query.
Delete useless words through one-by-one review when determining your Site Concept (see DAY 2 of the Action Guide -- video or written), or through filtering and sorting after expanding your keyword list (see DAY 3 of the Action Guide -- video or written).
If your set of keywords is kept "neat," working with your MKL is much easier, and much more fruitful.
Seed Word Menu
All functions in the MKL are based on which Seed Word you've selected. If you select All, then any filtering or sorting will be done on every keyword contained in the MKL.
If you select a Seed Word (ex., anguilla), only the keywords associated with that seed will appear in the MKL.
Any filtering, sorting or deleting will affect only those keywords.
Except for your initial analyses on DAY 2, make a selection from the Seed Word menu your first action whenever you visit the MKL.
To remove a Seed Word, you must delete all the keywords attached to the word. Click on the Check all link for each page of keywords associated with that Seed. Then select Delete Checked from the Select Action menu.
The deleted Seed Word will remain in the menu. This allows you to add a single keyword to the Seed, or to run an Ultimate Outside Lateralizer using that Seed, during that session.
The Seed Word will disappear from the menu the next time you log into Brainstorm It!, or after you refresh the page. Either of these actions will, however, turn any blue words into black words.
Add Keyword Tool
Use the Add Keyword tool to add single keywords that you find during your research.
For example, suppose your Site Concept is "anguilla" and you want to add "anguillita island" (a nearby island). If you don't want it to become a Seed Word (by running a Brainstormer query with that term), click on Add Keyword to add that keyword to the MKL.
Tips
- Click on Add Keyword.
- Type the keyword in the New Keyword text box, without quotes.
- Choose a Seed Word in the Associate with menu.
- Click on Add New Keyword.
- Click on the white X (on red background) to close the tool, or click on Add Keyword again.
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If you add a keyword using the Add Keyword tool, and don't associate it with an existing Seed Word, you'll find that keyword in your MKL by selecting Added Keywords from the Seed Word menu.
You can find any added keywords that you associated with a Seed Word by selecting that Seed Word in the menu.
- The new keyword will appear at the top of your MKL, in blue.
- If you add the keyword to the wrong Seed Word, delete it from that list, enter the keyword again, and associate it with another Seed Word.
Filter Tool
Several hundred keywords can be an overwhelming number to analyze. But you can quickly trim that number by applying filters, temporarily hiding the words you don't want to study.
Tips for Using Any Filter, Including Pre-Set Tasks and Custom Tasks
- After applying a custom filter or a pre-set task to a Seed Word, you can select a different Seed Word and have the same filter or task apply to it as well.
- Click on the Filter button to view the filtering criteria for the pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive, and Solid Potential). You can also change those criteria for this MKL session only to obtain different results.
- If you clicked on the Filter button to view the filtering functions, click on the button again to hide the functions.
Important Note About Filtering (and Pre-Set Tasks)
Filtering and tasks work on all the keywords brought back by a Seed Word. If your Seed Word brought back a lot of valuable keywords, then the results returned by any filter or task will resemble the results you'll see in DAYs 2 and 3 of the Action Guide. However, if the Seed brought back a lot of low-value keywords, then many of the tasks will return poor keywords.
This is especially true for the Solid Potential task. If the keywords being filtered are all low-value keywords, Solid Potential will bring back the best of those low-value keywords.
Remember this phrase when using filters and tasks...
Garbage in. Garbage out.
If you start with junk, filtering and pre-set tasks will only provide a smaller list of junk!
Now we'll discuss how to use each filter...
Keyword Filter
- Select the Seed Word you want to filter.
- Click on Filter to open the filtering tool.
- Select contains, excludes or starts with.
- Enter the word or phrase to filter for.
- Delete the word/phrase if you want to change it. Click the clear link if you want to remove the filtering completely.
The Keyword filter is especially useful after running a Lateral Brainstormer query.
If you had 287 keywords from a Vertical brainstorm before running the Lateral brainstorm, and now you have 925, use this filter to hide (exclude) all the keywords that have the Seed Word in them.
This lets you study and analyze only the newly brainstormed words, even though they have the same Seed Word.
For example, for the Seed Word "anguilla," use the excludes function to hide all the keywords that have "anguilla" in them (all the words that a Vertical brainstorm returned).
"Contains" and "excludes" work with single words, or multiple words. If you enter two or more words, the filter will find and display (or hide) all keywords that contain both filter words, including those with a third word between the filter words.
"Starts with" brings back a continuously smaller set of words as you type each new letter in the filter box. For example, typing "a" immediately brings back all words starting with "a." If you then type an "n," all words starting with "an" are returned.
Value Demand Filter
Here's what the 6 functions mean when filtering Value Demand. (If you want to review the definitions of these functions first, click here.)
- Select the Seed Word you want to filter.
- Click on Filter to open the filtering tool.
- Select your filter function.
- Enter the number (or numbers if you selected a range function) to filter for.
- Delete the number if you want to change it. Click the clear link if you want to remove the filtering completely.
- Greater than -- Since higher Demand is better than lower Demand (more people are searching for this keyword), filtering Value Demand with this function brings back keywords that you'll want to write about (if Supply is low).
- Less than -- Using this function shows keywords that you may want to delete, or postpone writing about.
- Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes (very high and very low) of Demand.
- Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of Demand, ones you'll want to write about).
- Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back the worst keywords in terms of Demand, ones that you may want to delete or postpone writing about.
- Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Demand (for example, the lowest 25% and the highest 10%).
For example, you'll use the Value Demand filter when studying the big picture Demand for your 3 potential Site Concepts ("greater than" 1,000) and again when looking at Demand Depth ("greater than" 500).
Real Supply Filter
This is what the 6 functions mean when filtering Real Supply.
- Select the Seed Word you want to filter.
- Click on Filter to open the filtering tool.
- Select your filter function.
- Enter the number (or numbers if you selected a range function) to filter for.
- Delete the number if you want to change it. Click the clear link if you want to remove the filtering completely.
- Greater than -- This function returns words you may want to delete, or postpone writing about, due to high competition. Or they may make good TIER 2 pages.
- Less than -- Since lower Supply is better than higher Supply (there are fewer Web pages vying for people's attention), filtering with this function brings back keywords that are more likely to make it into the Top 30 at the Search Engines. These are the ones you'll want to write about first (if Demand is high).
- Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Supply (words with too much competition, or that may have little value in terms of monetization).
- Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, finds keywords you may want to delete, postpone writing about (due to very high competition), or turn into more general TIER 2 pages.
- Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back words you'll want to write about first (if Demand is high), since competition is low.
- Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Supply, leaving you with words that are popular with other Webmasters, but not too popular.
For example, you'll use the Real Supply filter when looking at the Winnable Depth of your 3 potential niches ("range" from 50 to 500).
Profitability Filter
What the 6 functions mean when filtering Profitability...
- Select the Seed Word you want to filter.
- Click on Filter to open the filtering tool.
- Select your filter function.
- Enter the number (or numbers if you selected a range function) to filter for.
- Delete the number if you want to change it. Click the clear link if you want to remove the filtering completely.
- Greater than -- This function brings back keywords that you'll want to write about first.
- Less than -- This function gives you keywords that you may want to postpone writing about (or even delete, if Value Demand is very low).
- Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Profitability.
- Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of Profitability, ones you'll want to write about).
- Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back the worst keywords in terms of Profitability, ones that you may want to delete or postpone writing about.
- Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Profitability.
Notepad Filter
- Select the Seed Word you want to filter.
- Click on Filter to open the filtering tool.
- Select contains, excludes or starts with.
- Enter the word or phrase to filter for.
- Delete the word/phrase if you want to change it. Click the clear link if you want to remove the filtering completely.
The Notepad filter works the same way as the Keyword filter. If you have notes for a lot of keywords, search for (or exclude) a particular word or phrase, or number.
For example, if you've entered notes in several notepads using the phrase "monetization options," you can filter for that phrase and return every keyword that has the phrase "monetization options" in the notepad.
Multiple Column Filtering, and How It Works
You can use just one filter, or turn up the power by filtering the results of a filter, which is the basis for pre-set tasks (more on this in the next section) and custom tasks (discussed later). Step-by-step, multiple column filtering is powerful.
After you choose your Seed Word (or keep it at "All"), your first filter (ex., Real Supply) immediately brings back the subset of keywords that meet your selected criterion (ex., Supply less than 200). You can then screen the remaining words with another filter (ex., Value Demand greater than 1,000).
As you get the hang of it, you'll use multiple column filtering to find and keep excellent keywords, and drop the poor ones.
When you use more than one filter at a time, the first filter to act on the keywords is marked as Filter #1. The second to act is Filter #2. The second one works only on the words brought back by the first filter, bringing back a subset of those words.
Multiple column filtering for Value Demand, Real Supply and Profitability is sequential and cumulative. In other words, filtering for A and then B will not bring back the same results as filtering for B and then A. You'll receive the same number of keywords, but the keywords in the list will be different, based on the functions and criteria you used in your filters.
For example, if you have 333 keywords for "anguilla" and you filter first for Real Supply highest 50% (Filter #1 in the screenshot above), you will have 165 keywords displayed in your MKL.
If you then filter for Value Demand lowest 30% (Filter #2 above), the Demand filter will work only on the 165 keywords returned by the Supply filter, returning 50 keywords (165 x .3). It will display only those keywords that have a Real Supply in the highest 50% and also a Value Demand in the lowest 30%.
Reversing the filter order will give 99 keywords in your MKL for the lowest 30% Value Demand. Applying the highest 50% Real Supply to that list will also return 50 keywords (99 x .5), the same number as the previous filter order. But the keywords displayed will be different (50% of a smaller Demand vs. 30% of a larger Supply).
You can test this by sorting the keywords returned by these two filters. Sort by Profitability. You'll see different keywords at the low end and at the high end of profitability.
Customize Columns Tool
- Click on the Columns button to open the Customize Columns tool.
- Add a check to any column that you want to display in the MKL.
- Uncheck any column that you do not want to display in the MKL.
- Click on the white X on red circle, or click on Columns again, to close the tool.
The Customize Columns tool lets you choose the columns you want to display in your MKL. Simply remove a check from any column to hide it temporarily.
To open the tool, click on the Columns button, to the right of the Filter button...
A new tool opens with a white X on a red circle in the top left.
The Keyword column has no checkbox, as all the work in the MKL is done based on your keywords. The Customize Columns default is all columns checked. If you want to remove some of the columns from the display, uncheck them.
If you later decide that you'd like to display any of the hidden columns again, open the tool and add checks to those columns.
Below is a screenshot with only the Value Demand, Real Supply, Profitability and Notepad columns showing, along with the Keyword column...
Important
The columns are removed from the MKL's display only. None of your data is lost. At any time, you can add those columns back into the MKL, and all the current data will appear again.
When you're finished, click on the white X on the red circle, or click on the word Columns in the button bar.
Tips
- Columns are hidden for the current Brainstorm It! session only, or until you click on All Keywords. Use All Keywords as the fast way to add a check to all the hidden columns.
- If you want to work with only certain columns, create custom tasks that include just your column selections. See the next section, Save Custom Task Tool, for more information.
Save Custom Task Tool
- Set filters, sorts and columns the way you want them. Or change a pre-set task.
- Click on Save Custom Task to open the tool.
- Enter a New Task Name.
- Enter a New Task Description (optional).
- Click on Save New Task.
- Click on the white X on red circle to close the tool if you don't want to save the custom task.
The Save Custom Task tool allows you to create a task that does exactly what you want it to do. Alter a pre-set task, or create a completely custom task with your own settings.
The tool allows you to save filter, sort and column settings into a task. For example, you may want the Lower Profitability pre-set task to filter Value Demand first, Real Supply second. Change the filters to the new order and save the new task.
Give it a descriptive name (max 25 characters, letters and numbers, periods and commas only), and provide a description (optional, but recommended) for it (max 150 characters, letters and numbers, periods and commas only)...
After clicking on the Save New Task button, the Save Custom Task tool closes and your new custom task appears with the name you gave it to the right of Solid Potential in the task bar. The description you wrote displays just below the task bar whenever you select this custom task...
To add more tasks, repeat the process above. For example, you may want to always sort Solid Potential keywords by lowest Real Supply, so that you know which keywords can be won at fairly quickly at the Search Engines...
Each new task will appear to the right of the last task in the task bar. If you have more than will fit on one row, the new task will appear in a new row below the previous one...
To delete a custom task, click on the light gray X on the darker gray circle, immediately to the left of the task name. When you hover over the X, the gray circle turns red...
You'll be asked to confirm deletion of the task. Click OK to delete it.
Tips
- You can switch between Seed Words while using the same task, just as you would with a pre-set task. You can also change any of the settings in your task, for this session only. If you want to keep the new settings, create a new task.
- Use All Keywords to restore all your keywords and remove any custom tasks, including any hidden columns.
- If you want to always work without extra columns displaying in your MKL, create a task that lets you quickly switch to the hidden column view. Click on the Columns button (see above for instructions) and uncheck those columns you don't want to use. Then click on Save Custom Task and give this new "task" a name and description.
All Keywords, Pre-Set Tasks, Custom Tasks
All Keywords
Use the All Keywords pre-set task to quickly clear any filtering and/or sorting you may have applied to the keywords of a particular Seed Word, or to the keywords in your entire MKL. This function works for any manual filtering you set yourself, and for any of the pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive, and Solid Potential).
It clears the filtering, and returns all the keywords for that Seed Word (or the entire MKL if you selected All as the Seed Word). It also switches to the default sort, which is Keyword, A-Z.
Pre-Set Tasks
Reserve your work with the other three pre-set tasks for DAY 3, after you have selected your Site Concept and are developing your site's Content Blueprint.
Lower Profitability Task
The Lower Profitability task works to show you all keywords that are at the low end of profitability. This means words that have a high Supply and a low Demand.
The results of this task are filtered by Profitability. The words at the top of this filtered list are the ones with the lowest profitability. As you move down this list, the profitability gets higher.
If you find any keywords in this filtered list that you think will make good content (based on your knowledge of your visitors' needs), consider using them as the focus of TIER 3 pages after you've created the more profitable pages on your site.
The rest of the words are ones that you'll likely want to delete. Add a check to each of them, then click on the gray column heading to the left of the Keyword column heading.
All the checked words are sorted to the top. Review the checked words to ensure that you're not going to delete any keepers. Then select Delete Checked from the Select Action menu.
General Competitive Task
The General Competitive task displays all keywords that have a very high Supply (competition from other Web sites), and thus are very hard to win.
The results of this task are filtered by Real Supply, with highest Supply numbers at the top. Keywords in this filtered list will likely make for very good (and profitable) content pages, but you won't win at the Search Engines for those Specific Keywords for quite a while. However, you may also receive visitors to these pages for other keywords or keyword combinations that you didn't plan for or research (Long Tail keywords).
Traffic to your site first starts arriving from searches for keywords that you did not even anticipate. These "one-of" types of keywords are also known as "long tail" keywords.
As you add some links and content, you start getting found for TIER 3 pages, then TIER 2. The last keyword you will usually generate traffic for is your Site Concept Keyword since it is usually the broadest.
When you do start ranking well for your home page, it will ultimately be your single most important traffic-builder. Even then, though, your TIER 2 and 3 pages will add up to way more than your home page.
For example, in the screenshot above, "anguilla hotels" is a competitive term, but would make for a valuable TIER 2 page with TIER 3 pages about specific hotels on Anguilla.
Your best plan? Create pages for the harder-to-win TIER 3 keywords after you've written your TIER 2 pages and your TIER 3 pages with lower Supply.
Be sure to delete any that are clearly not relevant to your Site Concept, or would not become part of a keyword combo with your Site Concept Keyword.
Solid Potential Task
The Solid Potential task gives keywords that are in the mid-range of Supply (not too much competition, but enough to tell you that the keyword is popular), and have high Demand. High Demand and mid-range Supply keywords are the ones with solid potential, the ones you'll want to focus your site on.
Results of this task are sorted by Profitability, with highest Profitability at the top. Unlike keywords found by the General Competitive task, pages about keywords in this list should be found soon by people looking for these terms. Since Demand is high, any pages you write about these keywords should be profitable for you.
So write pages about these keywords first (TIER 2 or TIER 3), before writing about competitive TIER 3 keywords or low profitability keywords.
A few of these pages will make great monetizable TIER 2 pages, while others will make very good TIER 2 hub or interlink pages. And the rest will make excellent TIER 3 content pages with good monetization potential.
Important Note About Deleting Keywords From Filters and Pre-Set Tasks
Percentage filters work constantly. So when you use one or more percentage filters or any of the 3 pre-set tasks (which use percentage filters) and you delete keywords, you will often see that other keywords replace the ones you deleted. Depending on the nature of what you are doing, these will be borderline keywords that "just missed" making it the first time around. They may even be a little better than many of the keywords already in that subset, since it's not only about the numbers. This way, you have a constant set of keywords to work with.
The number will go down slowly as you start deleting more and more keywords from that subset. Continue keeping the good ones and deleting the bad ones. Stop when only good ones are left. If you like, repeat the filter, "widening" it a bit to increase the number of keywords, and start filtering again.
As you get more skilled with filters, and once you have picked your niche and fully brainstormed it, you no longer need to compare one niche against another. At that time, you will start to work with absolute number filters (ie., "greater than" a certain number instead of a percentage). With absolute number filters, whenever you delete a keyword, the remaining keywords will drop by one.
The Lower Profitability task is pre-set to bring back the 50% of keywords with the highest Supply. It then filters those keywords to bring back the 30% with the lowest Demand. You end up with 15% of the original number of keywords (.5 x .3 = .15), all with high Supply and low Demand (which equals low Profitability).
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from lowest x% to percent range) or the criteria (numbers). You cannot change the filter order. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear the filter, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
The General Competitive task is pre-set to bring back the 20% of keywords with the highest Supply. It then filters those keywords to bring back the 20% with the highest Demand. You end up with 4% of the original number of keywords (.2 x .2 = .04), all with very high Supply and very high Demand.
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from highest x% to percent range) or the criteria (numbers). You cannot change the filter order. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear the filter, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
The Solid Potential task is pre-set to exclude the top and bottom 20% of Supply, leaving only keywords in the 20% to 80% range. It then filters those words, returning only the ones with the highest 60% of Demand. You end up with 36% of the original number of keywords (.6 x .6 = .36), all with higher Demand and mid-range Supply.
You can change the filtering functions (ex., from percent range to highest x%) or the criteria (numbers). You cannot change the filter order. To change the order, click on All Keywords to clear the filter, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.
Custom Tasks
The custom tasks all appear to the right of the pre-set tasks, and continue to the next row, if you create that many.
To use a custom task, click on its button. All the settings saved with that task (filters, sort and columns) will immediately take effect.
Restore all the keywords and columns by clicking on All Keywords.
Sorting
Sorting is a very important tool for understanding each keyword in relation to the others in your MKL. Keep this perspective in mind when you're comparing one keyword with another.
For example, you can do a simple sort to quickly see which keywords have the best Demand (high numbers), the best Supply (low numbers) and the highest Profitability. Sorting also occurs automatically after any pre-set tasks.
If you do any manual filtering, only the default Keyword A-Z sort is applied to the results. After running your filter, click on any column heading to sort by that column. Click on the heading again to reverse the sort order (ex., from A-Z to Z-A).
The Lower Profitability and Solid Potential pre-set tasks each have a Profitability sort that occurs automatically (lowest at the top for the Lower Profitability task, and highest at the top for the Solid Potential task). The General Competitive sorts highest Real Supply to the top.
An up arrow (see the red circle in the screenshot below, on the left) sorts text A-Z and numbers from smallest to largest; a down arrow (in the screenshot below, on the right) sorts text Z-A and numbers from largest to smallest.
Tips
- Unlike deleting and exporting, sorting works on every keyword on every page at once. You do not have to sort each page individually. If you have just added new keywords to your MKL, the blue words are sorted as a group, and the black words are sorted as a group. To combine all the words before sorting, click on All Keywords.
-
If you want to delete just a few keywords from your entire MKL, you can sort those checked words to the top of the first page. Click on the gray bar to the left of the Keyword column title. This will let you do a quick final review before deletion to ensure that you are not deleting any keywords you want to keep.
- You can quickly find all the keywords with saved notes (yellow notepad icons instead of white notepads). Click on the word Notepad to sort keywords with saved notes to the top of the MKL.
- You can also sort the Site Info column. Whenever you run Site Info, the icon for that keyword turns yellow. You can then sort those yellow icons to the top of the MKL so that you can quickly review competition sites for that keyword.
Notepad
Enter all of your great ideas for content or monetization for each keyword into its notepad. You'll have ideas to enter into your notepads...
- from reviewing and thinking about your MKL or...
- by visiting sites in the course of your research (see Site Info, below) or...
- during the normal day-to-day process of building your site and thinking about your business.
WWW
The WWW tool lets you see the first page of results at Google, Yahoo! Search and Bing (formerly Live Search). The purpose for doing so? There are several reasons...
- Competition -- See who ranks in the Top 10. Don't be intimidated by a few big names. The key question is, "Is this a site that humans will value highly?" If you see lots of great content sites being found for all of your most important planned keywords, think twice about choosing this Site Concept.
- Monetization -- Take a quick peek to see how many advertisers there are (at the top, the right and/or at the bottom of the search results), who they are, and how targeted they are. Many targeted advertisers is a great sign. Most companies aren't able to do what you'll be doing (building your own traffic). They're delighted to pay you for ads (ex., Google AdSense)!
- PPC-Buying -- If you're planning to buy PPC (pay-per-click -- for example, Google AdWords) advertising (not something most SBIers need to do!), look for a lack of competition and a lack of advertisers instead!
Site Info
Site Info returns a lot of valuable information for the top 10 sites about a particular keyword. It also provides information about up to 10 more sites that are related to each of the top 10.
What do you do with this Site Info? Follow the links, investigating the sites and their inbound links. Make notes in the keyword's Notepad (Site Info also opens a new window, which lets you use the Notepad at the same time).
Studying the Site Info delivered for each keyword, you'll notice two very different types of sites...
- Content sites are competitors. They're in the same business as you (i.e., providing content), so they have already followed paths that now provide good content and monetization ideas for you (ex., found a great affiliate program!).
- Merchant sites get your brain churning with new monetization ideas! Each of these could be some kind of monetization opportunity for you.
Tip
- Site Info is one of the most useful, and one of the most under-used(!), Brainstorm It! tools. At the very least, use it for your Site Concept Keyword. Once you know this tool, you'll want to use it again, at least for a small number of your highest Demand keywords. It takes work, yes, but it's more than worth it!
Search It!
The three Search It! tools available in the MKL are...
- Wikipedia
- Flickr
- Google Traffic Estimator
If you find a keyword that you think will add value to your site, but you don't know what to write about it, click on the Wikipedia page icon to do some research on this keyword.
Some keywords are more "photogenic." Images and graphics are a natural fit with these words. If you don't have any images, use the Flickr camera icon to find some images that are tagged with this keyword.
If you're not sure of the monetization value of a keyword, you can get a sense of that using the Google AdWords Traffic Estimator to determine the potential value. Click on the $ icon to begin.
Important Caveat
The cost of AdWords ads is not what you will earn per click if you put AdSense on your site. It's an estimate of the cost-per-click that an advertiser would pay. You would only receive a small portion of that cost.
However, a high cost-per-click means an in-demand keyword, so any monetization related to that keyword should earn you a good income once you have sufficient traffic.