Using the Site build-it Brainstorming Tool

1. The tool uses Overture to research the keyword demand. Overture does not differentiate between singular and plural. This could give you a very misleading result if you are unaware of it.

Usually common sense will tell you whether people search for the singular or plural but if in doubt confirm your suspicion by using the wordtracker free trial.

2. Overture corrects common spelling mistakes. Thus if you searched on the keyword website overture would actually search on web site. Search engines see these two words completely different and therefore the profitability results would not be accurate for this.

To check whether people search for web site or website you need to use the Wordtracker tool or the free digitalpoint tool which shows wordtracker and overture results side by side.

3.The brainstorming tool does two runs- a main run followed by up to 3 mini brainstorming runs. If you transfer data from the brainstorming session onto the keyword list before you have completed all of your brainstorming runs then you can't do another brainstorming run for another 7 days.

There try to use all of your brainstorming runs before you transfer the data. You can pause the brainstorming session by selecting the option Continue Later which appears at the end of the main or a mini brainstorming run. When you open the SBI manager again you will be invited  to proceed with the brainstorming session.

If you are unhappy with this site concept then click start over to abandon the present site concept and research another one.

4. A single brainstorming run can take 1-2 hours. Mini sessions tend to be shorter -up to 1 hour. Therefore a complete run of 1 main plus 3 mini could take up to 5 hours to complete.

5. If after a brainstorming session you cannot view all the keywords that the run has found then click continue later and close the manager and restart the session and they will be there. Don't abandon the run.

6. You don't have to do the mini brainstorm on the word you select you can replace it with another. In the example below if you click the mini brainstorm icon next to the books keyword then you will eventually get to the dialogue box below where you can replace the word with another one here I've replaced books with magazine.

I used this when researching the keyword making a website as I also wanted to research make a website as well. When I did the main brainstorm make a website wasn't one of the keywords return so I just choose one of the keywords I didn't want and did a mini brainstorm but substituting make a website instead.

7. Once you have transferred data onto the keyword list you can only open the temporary database (not associated with a domain name) another 30 times. Therefore don't open the SBI manager unless you need to do another run or check data.

8. The profitability results are all relative to each other which can be somewhat misleading. I always insert a known entity into the keyword results as a yardstick. The keywords I use are windows Update XP, Anguilla beaches and cheap computers. I know that people have built successful site based on these keywords and the reasoning I take is that if my keywords have a higher profitability rating then these then I should have a good chance of getting a good ranking for them.

9 Printing out the keyword list is accomplished by clicking on the domain name (here the temporary domain) and the print dialog box appears- Not very obvious!

10. The tool isn't infallible so if you are suspicious of the results check them manually.

Note: In order to use this tool you need to have purchased site build-it.

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