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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.

The MKL also 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...

1. Tour of the MKL, an overview of each part and how it functions.
2. 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.

If you used the Seed Generator brainstorm, you'll also find "Potential Site Concepts" listed here. If you're using this brainstorm for your first site, that's all you'll find in the menu. If you're using it to research a second (or third) site, you'll find "Potential Site Concepts" there, in addition to your existing site's Seed Words.

You won't find the word you used as the Seed Generator's seed, because once you have all the potential Site Concepts, the original seed becomes unimportant.

Add Keyword Tool

The Add Keyword tool lets you add keywords, one-at-a-time, to your MKL (without making them Seed Words). Brainstorm It! delivers the keyword's Value Demand and Real Supply (and calculates the resulting Profitability). Adding a keyword does not cost you a WT credit (although it does, as usual, combine both SBI! and Wordtracker data to deliver the best values possible).

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.

Get Google $ Tool

The Get Google $ tool retrieves PCDM (Predicted Click Demand per Month) and CPC (Cost Per Click) numbers for each keyword from Google AdWords.

It then calculates the Keyworth of each keyword. The Keyworth of a keyword is the single best indicator of what a keyword is worth.

Clicking on the Get Google $ button (screenshot above) opens the tool (screenshot below). Click on the help link there for instructions on using this tool, or click here for those instructions. Clicking on Get Google $ again, or on the white X on the red circle, closes the tool.

After you import the numbers into the MKL, it displays the new numbers (from Google) in new columns -- PCDM and CPC ($), along with Keyworth. A new task bar, the Ad Value Task Bar, appears below the Basic Task Bar.

Filter Tool

The Filter tool lets you quickly find and display subgroups of keywords in your MKL. Your filtering options include...

• 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").

• 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 (a seventh is only available in the Ad Value pre-set tasks, discussed below). These 6 are...

  1. greater than
  2. less than
  3. range
  4. highest x%
  5. lowest x%
  6. percent range

  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 sort order? Want to show a different set of columns? Want to change the criteria in one of the Ad Value tasks?

Create a custom task with a combinations of filters, sorts, and columns. When you like what a custom task does, click on Save Custom Task, name it so you won't forget what it does, and save it to the appropriate task bar.

Basic Task Bar

The Basic Task Bar contains a set of pre-set tasks that work on all the keywords currently displayed in your MKL.

All Keywords

All Keywords is a pre-set task that lets you quickly clear all filters, sorts and columns that you may have applied, whether you set them manually, used pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive, and Solid Potential, plus the Ad Value pre-set tasks) and/or customized those tasks.]

Clicking on All Keywords clears it all 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).

Before clicking on All Keywords, if you find a combination of filters, sorts and columns to be especially useful, save it as a Custom Task.

Other Basic Pre-Set Tasks

As mentioned above, there are three other Basic pre-set tasks. To understand exactly what each task does, click on it and then click on the Filter button. This will show you which filters are used, as well as their settings.

The other Basic Tasks are...

• Lower Profitability, which shows 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 to the top.

  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 higher Supply and lower Demand (i.e., worse Profitability).

  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.

• 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.

• 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 percent range 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.

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.

Ad Value Task Bar

The Ad Value Task Bar displays a set of pre-set tasks that work with the values brought back to the MKL after you click on the Get Google $ button. This task bar does not appear until after you have used Get Google $ for the first time.

The new values (i.e., in addition to Keyword, Value Demand, Real Supply, Profitability and Notepad) are...

• PCDM
• CPC ($)
• Keyworth

All Keywords Ad$

The All Keywords Ad$ task returns all the keywords, displaying only the ad-related columns noted above. Use it to clear any custom filtering, sorting and columns you may have done, or to clear any of the Ad Value pre-set tasks (Ad Scan, Winnability, Big-Time? or The Middle) or Basic pre-set tasks.

This task works by Seed Word. If the Seed Word is "all," then every keyword is returned with the relevant ad numbers. If the Seed Word is "anguilla," then only the keywords attached to that Seed Word are returned.

Other Ad Value Pre-Set Tasks

As mentioned above, there are four other Ad Value tasks that have pre-set filters and sorts (to see the task functions, click on the Filter button)...

• Ad Scan, which shows you keywords that have a Keyworth greater than 0.

  The Ad Scan task is pre-set to bring back all the keywords that have a Keyworth greater than 0. In order to have Keyworth greater than 0, a keyword must have a CPC greater than $0.00, since Keyworth values depend on CPC values. Therefore, this task lets you do a high-level scan for keywords with "Ad Value."

  This task shows only the Keyword, PCDM, CPC, Keyworth and Notepad columns, sorted by Keyworth.

  You can change the filtering function (ex., from greater than to percent range) or the criteria (numbers) from 0 to a larger number.

• Winnability, which returns all keywords that have a good correlation between Value Demand and PCDM. This means that Value Demand and PCDM are telling you roughly the same thing, that there is sufficient demand for this keyword.

  The Winnability task is pre-set to display all keywords that have a CPC greater than 0.5 (greater than 50 cents), Value Demand greater than 149, PCDM greater than 14, and Real Supply less than 500. In other words, these are keywords that have a proven record of paying ad money to publishers, and they are relatively easy to rank for.

  This task shows the Keyword, Value Demand, Real Supply, PCDM, CPC, Keyworth and Notepad columns, sorted by PCDM.

  You can change any of the filtering functions (ex., from greater than to percent range) or the criteria (numbers).

  You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords Ad$ to clear all the filters, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.

• Big-Time?, which gives you the keywords that are good money-making keywords, including "big-money" keywords (words with a high CPC and a good PCDM value). It also returns high competition (high Real Supply) keywords.

  The Big-Time? task displays all keywords that have a PCDM greater than 29 and a CPC greater than 1 ($1.00). The words it returns are ones with reasonable to high competition.

  This task shows the Keyword, Real Supply, PCDM, CPC, Keyworth and Notepad columns, sorted by Real Supply.

  You can change any of the filtering functions (ex., from greater than to percent range) or the criteria (numbers).

  You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords Ad$ to clear all the filters, then manually apply the filters in the order you want.

• The Middle, which returns the "heart" of your MKL in terms of the "AdSensibility" of the topics of your site. In other words, which pages are likely to do very well with AdSense ads placed on them.

  The Middle task displays all keywords that have a CPC greater than 0 ($0.00) and a Keyworth in the 25%-75% range. In other words, the heart of all the AdSense-earning keywords.

  This task shows the Keyword, Real Supply, PCDM, CPC, Keyworth and Notepad columns, sorted by Keyworth.

  You can change either of the filtering functions (ex., from greater than to percent range) or the criteria (numbers).

  You cannot change the filter order of the task. To change the order, click on All Keywords Ad$ 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.

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, check the checkbox beside each keyword (more on deleting and exporting in a moment). You can add checks individually, or click on Check all to check every keyword on the page. Uncheck all removes all the checks on the page.

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.

All keywords are exported alphabetically, that is, from A to Z, regardless of any sorting you may have done in the MKL prior to the export.

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 1 is the current page. The last number is 8, which indicates that there are 8 pages of keywords. And the rows per page is set to 100. This indicates that there are at least 801 keywords in the MKL. (If rows per page is 100, 8 pages indicates that there are at least 801 keywords, but no more than 900.)

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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.

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 page
• Contact information for the webmaster
• The URL of the page as a live link that will take you to the page
• The Alexa Rank
• Links to PAGE, a MajesticSEO search that shows the top 5 inbound links to the page
• Links to SITE, a MajesticSEO search that shows the top 5 inbound links for the site (links that point to all the pages of the site)
• Links FROM Site, a Bing search that shows links from that site to other sites
• The Description of the page
• The age of the site (online since...)
• Information about each of up to 10 pages related to this 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 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 a special tool to double-check the cost of AdWords ads for that keyword. It is also tells you the number of ads, advertisers and PPC competitors, of which you can click to see the Top 10 for free (remember, those are not YOUR competitors -- they are those of your advertisers -- the more the merrier)! You can even see sample ads, and you might even find a "related keyword" that's worth adding to your MKL!

PCDM, CPC ($) and Keyworth Columns

These three columns display numbers provided by Google AdWords. When you click on Get Google $, Brainstorm It! gathers the numbers for the keywords in your MKL from Google.

The higher the value in these three columns, the better the keyword is in terms of monetizability (all else being equal).

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 "Potential Site Concepts," only the words associated with the Seed Generator Brainstorm(s) you ran will appear in the MKL. Any of the tools and features below can be used with your potential Site Concepts. However, it does not make much sense to compare one potential Site Concept word directly against another.

If you have not yet used your Site Concept Finder, pick the 3 concepts that appeal to you for the most reasons and run the Site Concept Finder to start the process of finding the best niche for your new e-business.

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.

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

• 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.

  Find any added keywords that you associated with a Seed Word by selecting that Seed Word in the Seed Word 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.

Get Google $ Tool

Use the Get Google $ tool to retrieve AdWords data for your keywords (CPC, PCDM and Keyworth).

That data will help you determine if you can earn a reasonable income from each of your keywords.

To work with the numbers that this tool retrieves, click on any of the Ad Value Task Bar task buttons (see below on how to best use these tasks).

Steps To Retrieve and Import Google Data

1. In your MKL, change the rows/page to 250.

   

   Sort your keywords alphabetically by clicking on Keyword.

2. Click on Check all to add a check to all 250 keywords on that page.

3. Next, click on the Select Action menu and choose Export Checked (kw only). The file (called checked-keywords.csv) will download to your computer.

   

4. Open the exported CSV file with Notepad/TextEdit. Remove the first line, which says "keyword_phrase." Do not remove the quotation marks from the keywords.

5. Highlight all the keywords and copy them.

6. Click on this link to go to the AdWords tool.

   Google may require that you be logged into an AdWords account (it seems to be an on-again, off-again requirement). If you don't have an account, you'll have to create one. But only set it up if you need to.

   During the account setup process, you must select your country and time zone, plus the currency you want to use. These are permanent (that is, unchangeable) settings.

   We recommend that you choose the US dollar (USD) as the currency. Why? First, you can have multiple accounts, so if you ever decide to start advertising with AdWords, simply create a new account in your native currency. Second, using the USD lets all SBIers discuss equivalent Get Google $ values in the Forums.

7. Paste the keywords into the large "word or phrase" box. Enter 100 into the Max CPC $ box. Leave the Daily budget $ box empty. Do not change any of the other options.

8. Enter the challenge letters and click on the large Estimate button.

   

9. Numbers will appear for each column. Click on the Download button (on the top left of the columns) and select All (###), where ### is the number of keywords (usually, and no more than, 250).

   

   You must select the XML format and then click on the Download button. Read the message and then click on Dismiss.

10. Delete the keyword file (checked-keywords.csv) you downloaded from your MKL. Repeat Steps 2-9 for each set of 250 keywords and your final partial (likely less than 250) set of keywords.

11. Open the Get Google $ tool in your MKL if it's not already open and click on Import Google $. Browse to the downloaded file(s), whose name(s) will look something like this...

    keyword_stats_20110910_1417854.xml

    If you can't find it (or them), use your Find feature and enter "keyword_stats_" which should find the file(s) for you.

12. Upload the first file. On the file upload success page, you'll see an option to upload another file. Use that as quick access to the Import Google $ uploader for all additional AdWords files.

    If you can't upload your file, you may not have exported a USD file from AdWords. Be sure that you're using an account that's set to the USD. Then repeat the above steps with that account.

    If you have set your account to USD currency and you still get an error on upload, please check (open the file in a text editor) to see if the currency in the XML file downloaded from Google is showing the currency as "$." If it is showing as "USD," please do a find and replace on the file to replace every USD reference to $. This will resolve the issue.

    For some reason, Google sometimes reports the currency with USD instead of $ and this presents an error in Brainstormer.

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 Basic Task Bar's pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive and Solid Potential) or the Ad Value Task Bar's pre-set tasks (Ad Scan, Winnability, Big-Time? and The Middle). You can change those criteria to obtain different results (for this MKL session only, but you can save those revised criteria by creating a custom task).
• If you clicked on the Filter button to view the filtering functions, click on the button again to hide them.
• Use the All Keywords task to clear the slate and start over with a new sequence of filters, etc.

Now we'll discuss how to use each filter...

Keyword Filter

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).

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.)

1. 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).
2. Less than -- Using this function shows keywords that you may want to delete, or postpone writing about.
3. Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes (very high and very low) of Demand.
4. Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of Demand, ones you'll want to write about).
5. 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.
6. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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).
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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...

1. Greater than -- This function brings back keywords that you'll want to write about first.
2. Less than -- This function gives you keywords that you may want to postpone writing about (or even delete, if Value Demand is very low).
3. Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Profitability.
4. Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of Profitability, ones you'll want to write about).
5. 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.
6. Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Profitability.

Notepad Filter

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.

PCDM Filter

What the 7 functions mean when filtering PCDM (Predicted Click Demand per Month)...

1. Greater than -- This function brings back keywords that AdWords predicts will receive higher numbers of clicks per month. All things being equal (see above and below), you'll want to write about these keywords before writing about keywords with lower PCDM.

   Also look at the number of keywords returned. The more that you see returned by this filter, the more likely you are to earn a good income from AdSense.

2. Less than -- This function brings back keywords that AdWords predicts will receive lower numbers of clicks per month. You may want to hold off on writing about those topics, other things being equal (above and below).
3. Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of PCDM.
4. Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of the number of clicks that AdWords predicts they'll receive, keywords you'll want to write about.
5. Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back the worst keywords in terms of the number of clicks that AdWords predicts they'll receive, keywords that you may want to delete or postpone writing about.
6. Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of PCDM.
7. " - " -- This function brings back only the keywords with no PCDM number (AdWords has no PCDM data for this keyword). This means that AdWords has had no experience with this keyword, and so can't predict how many clicks it will receive each month.

Important Note: No value can work in isolation. So, for example, while a keyword with a high PCDM value is tempting, what if the Supply was sky-high? Not so interesting now! So after filtering for the highest 20% PCDM, you might want to add a second filter, this time selecting the bottom 30% of Real Supply. Sort it by Keyworth. If you like the results, save it as a task.

Important Reminder: The order of your filters makes a difference. Let's consider what we just did, but this time we start with the bottom 30% of Real Supply and then filter on the highest 20% PCDM. You'll find this a lot less useful because low-Supply keywords generally do not have PCDM values. So... order counts. Therefore...

Think carefully when creating a set of filters. The power in your hands is tremendous, if you use these tools well.

CPC Filter

What the 7 functions mean when filtering CPC (Cost Per Click)...

1. Greater than -- This function brings back keywords that are worth more to you in AdSense revenue. A click on an ad with this CPC is what the advertiser will pay (remember, this tool is for advertisers, not you, the publisher). Google will pay a share of this amount to you.

   The higher the CPC, the more this keyword is worth to you. All things being equal (see above and below and remember that "no value can work in isolation"), you'll want to write about these keywords before writing about keywords with lower CPC. Also look at the number of keywords returned. The more that you see, the more likely you are to earn a good income from AdSense.

2. Less than -- This function brings back keywords that are worth less to you in AdSense. You may want to hold off on writing about those topics, other things being equal (see above and below).
3. Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of CPC. Mid-range CPC with lowish Supply but good Value Demand and PCDM will form a solid foundation of winnable keywords that pay.
4. Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of the income you'll likely receive per click, keywords you'll want to write about).
5. Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back the worst keywords in terms of the income you'll likely receive per click, keywords that you may want to delete or postpone writing about.
6. Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of CPC.
7. " - " -- This function brings back only the keywords with no CPC number (AdWords has no CPC data for this keyword). This means that no advertisers are paying for ads based on this keyword.

Keyworth Filter

The Keyworth of a keyword is the single best indicator of what a keyword is worth. It takes every important value of a keyword into account... Value Demand, Real Supply, CPC value, PCDM.

Even with Keyworth, though, you must use your own human judgement, applying the numbers to the situation and comparing one Keyworth to another by also considering the other individual values and your particular circumstances (ex., starting with SBI! or a veteran who wins for tough keywords).

What the 7 functions mean when filtering Keyworth...

1. Greater than -- This function brings back keywords with a high value (a high "Keyworth") to you. This number takes into account the Value Demand, the Real Supply, the PCDM and the CPC. So the higher the number, the more valuable the keyword is to you.
2. Less than -- This function brings back keywords with a low value to you, based on demand, supply, PCDM and CPC. These keywords may not earn you much AdSense or other income, but they'll be good for filling out your site, giving your visitors the information they're looking for.
3. Range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Keyworth values.
4. Highest x% -- This function, like greater than, brings back the best keywords in terms of the value of those keywords to you, ones you'll want to write about).
5. Lowest x% -- This function, like less than, brings back the worst keywords in terms of the value of those keywords to you, ones that you may want to delete or postpone writing about.
6. Percent range -- This function is good for hiding the extremes of Keyworth values.
7. " - " -- This function brings back only the keywords with no Keyworth number (there is either no PCDM or no CPC data for these keywords). If this filter brings back a large percentage of your keywords, you may have problems earning a decent income from AdSense, and possibly from other monetization options. Use the Ad Value pre-set tasks (below) to give you a better sense of this.

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, add a sequence of filters, sorts and columns. Multiple column filtering is about to become one of your most powerful tools.

After you choose your Seed Word (or keep it at "All"), clear all filters by clicking on the All Keywords task (or All Keywords Ad$ task if you're examining AdWords numbers). Then add your first filter (ex., Real Supply). It immediately brings back the subset of keywords (ex., Supply less than 200). This is marked as Filter #1 right under the column heading.

So now, you're thinking... "OK, I've found low-supply keywords. Now let's find the highest-Demand of these low-Supply keywords. So you add a second filter for Value Demand, choosing "greater than" and entering 900 (marked as Filter #2 right under the Value Demand heading). This is a nice, simple, savable Custom Task...

The next time you do this Custom Task, you may decide to "loosen" the values to bring back more keywords. And this time, perhaps you choose to show the CPC column (see the next section about columns). Finally, let's say you sort the remaining list of keywords by highest CPC to the top.

You may find this task to be much higher yield. If so, save it as a custom task to the Ad Value Task Bar.

Through trial-and-error such as this, you'll hone your skills with this tool. You'll do more than use multiple column filtering to find and keep excellent keywords. Use it to find poor keywords, too, and delete them (or at least delay creating content about them, if they are topics that should be in a good site about your theme).

Columns Tool

Customize Columns lets you choose the columns you want to display and hide in your MKL.

Check the columns you want to display. Remove checks from those you want to hide 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.

There is no option to hide the Keyword column because all work in the MKL is done based on your keywords. The default is to display all columns except for PCDM, CPC ($) and Keyworth. 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, 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...

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 or All Keywords Ad$. Use either button as the fast way to display 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

Save Custom Task 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, < and > only), and provide a description (optional, but recommended) for it (max 150 characters, letters and numbers, periods and commas, < and > only)...

Then choose the Task Bar which will show the new taks. The default bar displayed in the menu is the one you are currently using. For example, if you're customizing the Lower Profitability task (screenshot below), then the default is Basic Task Bar. If you're creating a new Ad Value task based on numbers in the Winnability task, then the Ad Value Task Bar is the default.

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 Basic Task Bar, or to the right of The Middle in the Ad Value Task Bar. The description you wrote displays just below the Ad Value Task Bar whenever you select this custom task...

To add more tasks, repeat the process above. For example, you may want to have an Ad Scan task that has a CPC of at least $1.01...

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 custom 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 custom task.
• Use All Keywords or All Keywords Ad$ to restore all your keywords and remove any custom task filtering, including any hidden columns or columns you added to the MKL.
• 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.

Basic Tasks, Ad Value Tasks, Custom Tasks

Basic Task Bar

All Keywords Task

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 Basic pre-set tasks (Lower Profitability, General Competitive, 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.

Basic 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).

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.

Ad Value Task Bar

All Keywords Ad$ Task

Use the All Keywords Ad$ pre-set task to quick 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 Ad Value pre-set tasks (Ad Scan, Winnability, Big-Time? and The Middle).

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 Keyworth, highest to lowest.

Note: It's also useful to switch over to Ad Value tasks from any of the Basic pre-set tasks, clearing everything as usual, and showing you the default set of columns for working with Ad Tasks.

Ad Value Pre-Set Tasks

Only work with these four pre-set tasks when you reach DAY 4, after you've selected your Site Concept and developed your site's Content Blueprint, after you have your "Get Google $" data, and are studying the monetizability and the monetization options of your site.

Ad Scan Task

The Ad Scan task returns all keywords with a Keyworth greater than 0. In other words, it returns all keywords that are "worth something." It enables you to do a high-level scan for "ad value."

In truth, almost all keywords are "worth something" since Google will almost always be able to place a generic ad that is vaguely related to something on each page! It's just that keywords with a Keyworth greater than 0 are usually worth "something more."

The results of this task are sorted by Keyworth, highest values to lowest values.

Use this task to get a quick overview of the number of keywords delivered by this task and the value of those keywords. The more keywords listed by this task, the higher your income level is likely to be. The more keywords with high Keyworth numbers, the more valuable each of your visitors to that keyword's page(s) becomes.

See DAY 4 of the Action Guide for general numeric guidelines.

Winnability Task

The Winnability task gives you all keywords with CPC greater than $0.50 with lowish competition (less than 500), and that also have a strong correlation between Brainstorm It! and Google that these keywords are in demand -- they have good Value Demand and PCDM (greater than 149 and 14, respectively) that confirm there are people searching for, and clicking on ads for, these keywords).

The results of this task are sorted by PCDM, highest to lowest.

Think of it as "Quality Winnability"... keywords that pay and are winnable.

Use this task to determine keywords that will be relatively easy to win, have some demand, and have a reasonable cost per click (at least 50 cents -- you earn a portion of the CPC, so the higher the CPC, the more you're likely to earn)... and they get the click.

Big-Time? Task

The Big-Time? task provides keywords that can be your big money-making keywords. If there's money to be made with AdSense, you know that these are popular and monetizable keywords.

The task filters for keywords that have CPC over $1 and for PCDM of 30 or greater. The results of the task are sorted by Real Supply, highest to lowest.

Use this task to find big-money keywords reasonable competition. You will most likely find the best of these keywords about 1/3 of the way down this list, when the Supply is becoming more winnable.

See DAY 4 of the Action Guide for general numeric guidelines.

The Middle Task

The Middle task shows you those keywords that make up the heart of your AdSense monetization, what we call the "AdSensibility" of the topics that you write about.

The task filters on the middle 50% by Keyworth, then filters for keywords with CPC greater than $0. The results of this task are sorted by Keyworth, highest value to lowest.

Use this task to decide if there is a sufficient number of mid-range keywords to make this niche a worthwhile investment of your time. For example, if few keywords appear after running this task, there may not be much monetizable depth to this niche (from the AdSense point of view).

The more keywords there are here, and the higher the Keyworth numbers in the midrange, the easier it will be to earn an income from your site. See the Action Guide for general numeric guidelines.

Tip

• Try sorting this list by CPC, too, highest CPC to top. Are most of the numbers well above $1.00, or are most below $1.00. The more, the better, obviously.

Custom Tasks

The custom tasks all appear to the right of the pre-set tasks for your selected task bar, 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 for the Basic Task Bar, and All Keywords Ad$ for the Ad Value Task Bar.

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.

The Ad Scan task sorts automatically by highest Keyworth. The Winnability task sorts by highest PCDM. The Big-Time? task sorts by highest Real Supply, and The Middle task sorts by highest Keyworth.

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 in the Basic Task Bar.

• 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. 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 pages that are related to each of the top 10.

What do you do with this Site Info? Follow the links, investigating the pages/sites and their inbound and outbound 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 pages and sites...

• Content pages/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 pages/sites get your brain churning with new monetization ideas! Each of these could be some kind of monetization opportunity for you.

See also the discussion about Site Info in DAY 4 of the Action Guide.

Tip

• The Links To PAGE results give you an idea of how tough it will be to beat that page. It also gives you suggestions for pages on other sites that might link to your similar page -- if the webmaster linked to your competitor's page, he may link to yours. Ask for and secure that link.
• 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!

• There are two TNT HQ articles that will help you get more out of Site Info...

  Use Site Info for Keyword Research

  Use Competitor Info To Find Potential Sources of Inbound Links

Search It!

The Search It! tools available in the MKL are...

• Wikipedia -- 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.
• Flickr -- 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.
• KeywordSpy Keyword Estimator -- Get a sense of or confirm the monetization value of a keyword (check the CPC value of a keyword, the number of advertisers for it and its PPC competitors, and even see sample ads). Click on the $ icon to begin.

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Help and be helped at the Working With Your MKL forum.

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