Home | FREE Articles | Featured Resource | Quick Starts | Contact

How To Research A Business Idea

What's the fastest way to go broke in business? By creating a product that nobody wants.

Remember the colossal mistakes, like "New Coke", "Waterworld", and all the spring Football leagues? If you're an entrepreneur or small business, you probably can't afford big mistakes. So don't make them.

Research will help you chart your course. You're goal is to steer clear of the lemons-even if you're crazy about the idea-and mine the winners for gold. It's the basics of supply and demand: find out what people want, and give it to them.

Let's say that you've been a Kitchen and Bath designer for the last 15 years. You like your job, but you know there are other ways to turn your knowledge into cash. Based on customer interaction, years of experience, and chit-chat around the water cooler, you've come up with a couple of ideas for information products that you'd like to sell online. These include:

    1. When You Should and Shouldn't Remodel

    2. What to Expect When Remodeling Your Kitchen

    3. How To Remodel Your Kitchen for $5,000 or Less

    4. Popular Kitchen and Bath Remodeling Plans

    5. Remodeling Resources For Do-It-Yourselfers

They're all sound ideas, in your opinion. So, should you break out the quill and reams of paper and get busy with all that writing? No.

Why not?

Never assume ANYTHING.

Just because you're hot on the idea doesn't mean it's going to sell. Before you write the first word, buy the first office supply, or spend the first minute on this project, you need to know how it's likely to pan out. In other words, you want to know if it's going to make you money BEFORE you spend any time at all bringing it to fruition.

Here are a couple of ways to go about determining this:

Step #1 The Goto.com Search Term Suggestion Tool

This is an amazing little reporting tool that tells you how many times a keyword was searched on in the previous month. It also gives you similar keywords, with the number of times THEY were searched on during the month.

If it's a popular phrase or keyword in Goto, chances are, it's a popular search term on all the search engines. Which means people are looking for it. Which could spell profit for you.

Using our ideas from above, I typed in "Remodeling". Here's what it returned, with the keyword and number of searches in the previous month:

    Remodeling, 15,012

    Home remodeling, 8186

    Kitchen remodeling, 8015

    Bathroom remodeling, 6790

    Basement remodeling, 1885

    Remodeling contractor, 932

This list continues with other remodeling phrases, but I think you're beginning to see the picture: there's an interest in this topic.

Let's refine the search a little by typing in "Kitchen Remodeling". Here's are the different variations of 'kitchen remodeling" searches:

    Kitchen remodeling, 8015

    Remodeling kitchen, 591

    Kitchen and bath remodeling, 144

    Kitchen and remodeling, 121

    Kitchen planning remodeling, 112

Now let's type in "Remodeling Resources":

    Remodeling resource, 37

That's the only search term it returned, with a paltry 37 searches. Not much interest in that topic.

I also typed in "Budget Remodeling", "Do-It-Yourself Remodeling", and "Remodeling on a Budget", and none of those searches returned anything. So, based on our list of information products:

    1. When You Should and Shouldn't Remodel

    2. What to Expect When Remodeling Your Kitchen

    3. How To Remodel Your Kitchen for $5,000 or Less

    4. Popular Kitchen and Bath Remodeling Plans

    5. Remodeling Resources For Do-It-Yourselfers

It looks like #3 and #5 might not be as strong as the other three.

Now granted, this is very preliminary. The key to this exercise is in finding what search terms other people are using. If you need some help in coming up with appropriate key words, try the keyword suggestion tool at Jim's Tool, www.jimtools.com . It will help you flush out other phrases people might be searching on.

Nifty little tool, eh? Unfortunately, there is a catch to using this service-you have to have an account with Goto.com. It used to be free up until a few months ago.

You can open an account for $25; which might be a worthwhile investment, all things considered. It will cost you more than $25 to research, write, and launch a product that no one wants...which you could have learned by using this tool. You make the call.

If you have an account, here's where you can find it:

    On Goto.com (http://www.goto.com),

    Go to Manage Accounts

    Then DirecTraffic Center

    Log in

    Go to Manage Listings

    Then Add Listings

    The Search Term Suggestion Tool is in the lower right corner of the screen.

Step #2 Check the Search Engines

Once you've determined whether there's a demand for your topic, start looking around the search engines to see what's already out there and easily accessible.

The search engines I tend to frequent include:

Type in your keywords and see what you get. If there are few if any similar products, but lots of demand as revealed in the keyword search on Goto, you could have a winner. If there are already lots of existing products from recognized experts, you'll need to decide if you want to fight for a piece of the pie.

Make note of what's available. If you can, buy different products and see what they're like. Make notes on what's being offered, the price, methods of delivery, and quality of product. Return a few to see what that process is like. Yes, you're basically spying on your competition, but it's a good investment to see what your potential customers will see when they go looking for products, just as you have.

Step #3 Check The Online Bookstores

Click over to Amazon, www.amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, www.bn.com to see what kinds of books and videos are already available on the subject. Many times, you'll find products rated by customer reviews. Again, this gives you an idea of the nature, quantity and quality of what's already available on the topic.

If you tend to frequent niche-specific online book stores yourself, then go see what those have to offer. Again, you're gathering data in much the same way your prospective customers will be looking for products.

Step #4 Visit Niche-Specific Hubs

In almost every industry, there's a site online that is THE resource to turn to for information about that topic. To find yours, visit these sites:

These portals will lead you to sites you probably never knew existed. Again, you'll be able to see what's available and what's not regarding your ideas.

Step #5 Participate In Discussions

Go to ForumOne, www.forumone.com and Egroups, www.egroups.com and look for niche-specific discussion boards. You'll find all sorts of questions and answers here. Ask and answer a few questions yourself. You'll be astounded at what you can learn.

Want more ideas, resources,
and inspiration on a regular basis?
Subscribe to our FREE bi-weekly ezine,
The Bright Ideas Bulletin

First Name:
E-Mail: