Hi Kevin,
Great question! I think the easiest way to tell is when you find searches for products in your keyword research - especially specific product searches.
For example:
dart supplies 120
online dart supplies 28
discounted dart supplies 9
(the number out to the right is the approximate number of searches per day across the major search engines - taken from ).
I realize those arent huge numbers, but I had a personal interest in darts and dart supplies, because I play for a local league - and buy all of my supplies online
Anyway - when you see that, you know that the people searching those terms are looking for
supplies... not
information. So it would make sense to build a product-based site vs a content-based site.
You might go back to this archive for more ideas: