Part 3: I Have a Business Idea, Now What? 

Welcome to part three of the online business idea mini-series. In this mini-series, I’m giving you bits and pieces from my business ideas book Step One (a book about finding and validating your first business idea). This is part three of the mini-series. In this blog, I address the common entrepreneurial dilemma “I have a business idea, now what?” showing you how to test your business idea.

You can access the other parts of my business idea series here:

• Part 1: What Type of Business Should I Start (Why You Should Be Starting an Online Business)
• Part 2: I Want to Start a Business, But Have No Ideas (Business Idea Generator Exercise)
• Part 3: I Have a Business Idea. Now What? – How To Test Your Business Idea (With Long Tail Pro)
• Part 4: Online Business Revenue Streams – How to Make Money with Ecommerce Revenue Models
• Part 5: Validate and Choose the Best Online Business Idea (Your Most Profitable Business Idea)
• Part 6: Next Steps -How to Build an Online Business (The Steps for Starting a Profitable Online Business)

Disclaimer: This is directly copied from Chapter Five of my book Step One. There may be references to the book, or other chapters, in this blog post. That’s because it is literally copied and pasted from the book to make sure you get all of the necessary content for free (but just a heads up, if I say “later in the book” or “in the next chapter”, that is because I copied this straight from the book).

I Have a Business Idea, Now What? (How To Test Your Business Idea With Long Tail Pro)

“I have a business idea, now what do I do?” I hear that from every new entrepreneur at this stage in the process. Now, at this stage, we test your business idea. That is what I will show you in this blog.

In Part Three of the mini-series, you are going to check the market size of your 10 favorite business ideas from your brain dump list in Part Two. You are going to validate that there is niche market potential for each of your ideas before launching your business. I am going to teach you how to use a specific program, Long Tail Pro, to validate and analyze your market. I love this tool; I have been using this software program since 2015. I use this tool, and this exact process that I am about to teach you, to validate my niche business ideas. I have since taught this process to thousands of entrepreneurs, saving entrepreneurs from wasting hundreds of hours of hard work (and thousands of dollars) by validating their market before launching their business. In this blog, I will show you exactly how to use this program and give you examples so you can conduct the same analysis on your 10 business ideas.

By the end of this part of the blog, you will choose three business ideas to continue researching throughout the rest of this mini-series. You will have done deep dives into each of your 10 favorite business ideas, validating their market potential to narrow your list to the three best ideas. These are the ideas you will continue to research throughout the rest of the mini-series, as you get closer to choosing the one best idea on your list.

Test Your Business Idea

The best way to validate your market, and analyze your niche, is using Google search volume. If people are searching for your topic on Google, there is an opportunity to build a niche business. If no one is searching for your niche, you should avoid that business idea. It is incredibly difficult to build a business based on a topic that no one is searching for. With Google search volume trends, you can gauge your market size and discover new opportunities within your niche idea: a niche within a niche.

This blog gets a bit technical. You are going to use the tool Long Tail Pro; it is a tool that I use every day. It is an amazing research and analysis tool for researching Google Trends and competition. You will need your computer or phone to conduct this research. It’s my favorite business idea validation tool.

There is a slight learning curve in this section as you get comfortable using Long Tail Pro, but you will have no problem conducting your own research after following along with just one of the examples. I will break down the process into simple step-by-step terms to help get you started.

Long Tail Pro (a business idea validation tool)

Please go to theentrepreneurridealong.com/longtailpro. This will redirect you to a page with a button that reads “Start My Free Trial”; click it to sign up for a free Long Tail Pro trial. You will need this to follow along with the examples and conduct the step-by-step research in this blog.

Please note that the free trial may ask you to type in a credit card to start your seven-day free trial; you will only be charged for the subscription if you choose to continue to use Long Tail Pro after the trial period. I highly recommend investing in this tool; I use it every day. But if you do not want to continue using the tool, simply cancel your subscription after a few days and you will not be charged. I recommend setting a reminder on your phone to check after six days of using Long Tail Pro to make sure you cancel the subscription if you do not plan to continue using it.

Stop and do this now. Sign up for the free trial at theentrepreneurridealong.com/longtailpro. You will have no problem completing the research in this mini-series over the course of a few days, well before the free trial expires. Signing up for the free trial right now will encourage you to take immediate action on the process of analysis laid out in this blog.

Disclaimer

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an affiliate of Long Tail Pro. If you use the link theentrepreneurridealong.com/longtailpro to purchase a Long Tail Pro subscription, I will earn a commission.

I am an affiliate because I have tried dozens of other keyword and business idea validation tools and found Long Tail Pro to be by far the best. It is now the only keyword research tool I use and the tool I use most in my online businesses. As an affiliate, I receive access to free trials and discounts, so using my affiliate link will get you access to the seven-day free trial.

Long Tail Pro (my favorite business idea validation tool)

Long Tail Pro is a very powerful and easy-to-use research tool. It is essentially a business idea validation tool. Throughout the rest of this blog post, you are going to use Long Tail Pro to analyze the market potential, competition, and niche opportunities of each of your business ideas.

The process is simple, but it does take a little time to get used to this tool. I recommend blocking off 10 to 15 minutes per idea to conduct this research. For help and a visual breakdown of how to do this, watch the videos in this blog where I breakdown a real example in Long Tail Pro.

How it works

Using Long Tail Pro is easy. Log in to the Long Tail Pro web platform, go to the “keyword research” section, and type in key phrases related to your business idea in the search bar that reads “seed keyword.” Long Tail Pro will search and return up to 400 suggested keywords that are relevant to your seed keyword, with additional metrics to analyze the keyword, including search volume and a keyword competitiveness score.

For example, when I type in “golf,” Long Tail Pro returns 20 suggested key phrases related to golf, including golf, golf balls, used golf clubs, golf grips, golf net, and golf gloves. For each suggested key phrase, it also provides data such as search volume and competitive metrics. This quick search in Long Tail Pro for “golf” has now given me new ideas related to golf, and I can see some opportunities for niche businesses within golf. Then, I can go deeper with my analysis. If I am interested in “golf nets,” I would go back to the seed keyword search bar and type in the phrase “golf net.” Long Tail Pro then adds another 20 suggested key phrases related to golf nets to the earlier list. I can now see that 22,200 people search for the term “golf net” on Google every month. People are also searching for specifics relating to golf nets: backyard golf nets, indoor golf nets, pop-up golf nets, best golf chipping nets, and so on. Any one of these could be my niche business. I could create an entire business about backyard golf practice nets. This is how you will be using Long Tail Pro in this part of the mini-series.

Now that you have a general understanding of what Long Tail Pro is and how it works, I am going to give you step-by-step instructions on conducting your own research into each of your 10 business ideas. I will also give you specific criteria to indicate whether your idea offers niche potential and a large enough market. In the end, you will use these criteria to narrow your list of ten business ideas down to the three ideas that offer the best market potential.

Choose Ten Ideas

Choose 10 ideas from your brain dump list (from Part Two) that you want to research further. You do not want to move past this section, into the analysis, with more than 10 ideas on your list; it would take too long to research. Choose your 10 favorite ideas. Those are the 10 ideas that you will put through the business idea validation tool in this blog. Each should excite you and be something you can envision as your first business venture. Test those 10business ideas in this process.

How to Use Long Tail Pro

Below, I lay out the step-by-step process of conducting research using Long Tail Pro (my favorite business idea validation tool). In step 7, I teach you how to crunch these numbers and analyze what you are seeing and give you specific benchmarks that indicate whether or not an idea has real potential.

Step 1: Sign Up and Log In

Go to theentrepreneurridealong.com/longtailpro, which will redirect you to a page where you can sign-up for a seven-day free trial with Long Tail Pro. Sign up and log in to Long Tail Pro (or whichever research platform you choose).

Step 2: Create a New Project

When you have logged in to Long Tail Pro, go to the Keyword Research section on the left side of the screen. Near the top right of the keyword research page, you will see an “Add Project” button; click on it to create a new project. Do this with each of your 10 business ideas.

For example, if my business ideas were golf and computer repair, I would click the “Add Project” button and create a project for golf. I would then click the “Add Project” button again and create another project for Computer Repair. You want to keep your business ideas separate; otherwise, your research will become a jumbled mess. Thus, you want to create 10 projects with clear names that are easy to tell apart from one another.

Step 3: Settings

Change the following settings:

• Click the Related Keywords tab; this is where you will conduct your research.
• Set the suggestions per keyword to 20. This is the number of suggested results that will be returned by Long Tail Pro for each seed keyword you enter. I like to stick with 20 suggestions; any more than that can make the analysis overwhelming.
• The right side of the screen has a drop-down for language and location. Change this to your language (English for me) and set the location where you expect to attract most of your customers (the United States for me). The search criteria and competition will differ depending on the country. So, if you plan to sell art in South Africa, change the drop-down to South Africa. If you plan to teach finance to small businesses in the United Kingdom, change it to the United Kingdom. For now, if you are unsure, choose the United States. That is a good place to start for research purposes and get good estimates of market size and competition. For more in-depth, country-specific targeting, you can come back later to conduct more research after choosing your final business idea.

You can ignore the rest of the settings for now; they don’t need to be changed.

Step 4: Keyword Research

Now comes the fun part. Under the Seed Keywords section, type in your business idea and a few other keywords related to that idea: just a few words related to your business, not full sentences. Long Tail Pro will take each keyword you enter, search for it separately and return 20 related and suggested keywords for every seed keyword you enter. The suggested keywords will give you more ideas related to your niche. You can use those suggested keywords to find subtopics related to your niche, which will help you find opportunities within your niche if your original idea is too broad. This search will also return data like search volume and competition score that we will look at later.

You can search up to five seed keywords at one time. Make sure the five words are separated by adding a comma after each one; this will tell Long Tail Pro to search each seed keyword separately. As you can see in the image below, my five seed keywords are split up; each has a blue box around it. This indicates that Long Tail Pro will search each of those keywords separately.

For example, I have a business idea. My business idea is golf. I might enter five terms: golf, golf lessons, golf swing, golf club, and golf cart. These are just a few basic subjects related to golf. I want to see what else about golf could turn into my niche business. I do not want to start a business about golf; that is too general and too competitive. I want to start a business about something specific, such as golf putters or used golf carts. Those are niches. That is what this process will help us uncover.

Click Retrieve after you type in your five seed keywords.

Step 5: Reading the Results

After you type in your five seed keywords and hit Retrieve, Long Tail Pro will take a minute to load and will then return 20 suggested keywords for each seed keyword. Since I typed in five seed keywords, Long Tail Pro will return a hundred suggested keywords. In addition to the suggested keywords, Long Tail Pro will give you some data for each keyword, most of which can be ignored for the time being. Right now, you only need to pay attention to the following columns of data:

• Keywords
• Avg KC
• Volume

Keywords

This is the suggested keyword that is returned for each seed keyword you enter; it is a key phrase that people search for in Google. This helps you find subtopics and opportunities for products and content within your niche. Each suggested keyword is on its own row, with data corresponding to that suggested keyword listed to the right. If you click on the keyword, it will open up a new page with an analysis of that keyword. You can ignore this page for now. You do not need to click each keyword; while that information can be very powerful, you do not need it at this stage in the process. For now, just focus on the list of suggested keywords that are returned by Long Tail Pro after you type in your seed keywords.

Avg KC (keyword competitiveness)

Avg KC (average keyword competitiveness) is one of the primary reasons for using Long Tail Pro. It is a proprietary score assigned by Long Tail Pro that indicates the competitiveness of a given keyword. This score, from 0 to 100, indicates whether there are other highly authoritative websites in this same niche that write about this specific keyword. It indicates how difficult it would be for your website to show up on the first page of Google when someone searches for the keyword. The higher the score, the more difficult and thus unlikely it is that your website will be shown on the first page of Google when someone searches for that keyword. As a general rule, a score below 30 is good; it means that there is relatively low competition for the keyword in question. This is an excellent gauge of competition within your niche; it indicates whether there are other authoritative sites in the same niche, sites that would be tough competition for your business. This score can help you find a niche within a niche. For example, golf swing has a KC score of 40, which is pretty competitive, but the golf swing plane has a KC score of 22. Based on this analysis, I might choose to focus my niche within golf on teaching the golf swing plane.

Volume

Volume is the average number of times, per month, that people search Google for this exact keyword. For example, golf swing plane has a volume of 1,900, which means an average of 1,900 people per month search for golf swing plane on Google.

Sort

You can click each column to sort from high to low. For example, if you click the Volume column, the entire list will be reordered from highest to lowest search volume. If you click Volume again, the list will start with the lowest and end with the highest search volume.

Filter

You can also add a filter. Located directly above the column header, on the right side, you will see a section titled Filter: None. Click on this dropdown and click Add New. Here, you can filter specific keywords, volumes, and KC scores. You can use this to filter out keywords that you do not want to analyze. For example, if I do not want to start a business about golf clubs, I could add a filter that excluded any keyword with the word “club” from my list.

Other Data

You will also see the following columns in Long Tail Pro, but you can ignore them, for our purposes:

• Bid: This is used for paid advertising campaigns. It shows the amount an advertiser would likely have to pay per click for someone to click on the given keyword if they used a paid advertising campaign.
• Competition: This is a rank of low, medium, or high and indicates the number of advertisers competing for the given keyword, relative to all keywords across the Google search network.
• Words: This is simply the number of words in the keyword. For example, used golf clubs is three words, so this column would have the numeral 3.
• Rank Value: This is the monthly revenue that Long Tail Pro estimates you could earn by ranking in the first spot on the first page of Google for this keyword. The figure is calculated on the assumption that your website uses advertising to generate revenue.
• Lang: This is the language you selected in step 3.
• Loc: This is the location you selected in step 3.

Step 6: Repeat

Repeat step five at least three more times. That means I want you to have entered at least 20 seed keywords related to your business idea into Long Tail Pro, which will result in 400 suggested keywords.

I have a business idea for golf. To continue with the golf example, type in at least 20 seed keywords related to golf (and more if you can). I started with golf, golf lessons, golf swing, golf club, and golf cart.

From those five seed keywords, Long Tail Pro returned 100 suggested keywords related to golf. I looked through the results to find other topics related to golf that would pique my interest. I see new seed keyword ideas that had not occurred to me, including golf balls, used golf clubs, golf putters, golf club grips, and golf net. I take those five new ideas and type them into the seed keyword search bar and click Retrieve again to have Long Tail Pro update my list with new suggestions based on those new seed keywords.

To find new seed keyword ideas, use Google’s suggested search feature. To do this, simply go to Google.com. In the search bar, start typing in your business idea and watch the dropdown options that appear; these are search suggestions populated by Google.

As you can see, typing in golf leads Google to recommend a number of auto-fill suggestions like golf club, golf course, golf car, and golf equipment. If any of those interest me, I would type them into Long Tail Pro as seed keywords. Repeat this process with Google suggested search for each seed keyword to find new seed keyword ideas. In this case, golf equipment piqued my interest, so I went back to Google and typed in golf equipment. This time, Google suggested new auto-fill searches related to golf equipment, including used golf equipment for sale, used golf clubs, and golf equipment prices. I typed those three suggestions into Long Tail Pro as new seed keywords. Additionally, I looked at these new seed keywords like golf equipment and brainstormed, asking myself “What equipment is used in golf?” I let that spark new seed keyword ideas based on my experience playing golf, ideas like golf net, golf putter, and golf driver, all of which could be typed into Long Tail Pro as seed keywords.

Like Google’s suggested search, the Google related search feature will help you find new seed keyword ideas. Google related search is a recommendation of other search terms that are similar to your original search. You can find related searches at the bottom of each page of search results on Google. For example, when I search used golf clubs and scroll down to the bottom of the page, I see related searches like where can I buy used golf clubs and used golf clubs Dallas. I can use these ideas to spark new seed keyword ideas to enter in Long Tail Pro.

Your seed keywords should span a variety of subjects relating to your business idea; you do not want to enter the same seed keyword again and again. For example, rather than using the seed keywords golf balls, cheap golf balls, and best golf balls, which are all related to golf balls, I want a variety of subjects and topics in the golf niche like golf balls, golf gloves, and golf shoes. For the best results, mix up your seed keywords with a variety of subjects relating to your business idea.

Continue this process until you have entered at least 20 seed keywords in Long Tail Pro. You need a large list of seed keywords to analyze; this list will help you find a niche within your niche. This process can be a bit confusing at first. I recommend watching the video tutorials in this blog for a live example.

Step 7: Analyze

At this stage, you will have a list of more than 400 suggested keywords and corresponding data in Long Tail Pro. Now you can conduct your analysis.

In this step, you are analyzing your market. Use the criteria below to determine whether there is business potential for each idea. Filter out any business idea that does not have a large market size or does not offer niche potential.

• Search volume above 10,000 for root niche
• Five subtopics with search volumes above 500
• Ten keywords with KCs of 35 or less and search volumes of at least 100
• Existing products and services

Search volume above 10,000 for root niche

The root niche is your high-level topic, the main focus of your potential business. You need at least 10,000 people a month searching for that root niche. This ensures that there are enough people in your market searching for this particular topic to sustain a profitable business. I have found that a minimum of 10,000 monthly searches of the root niche is necessary to build a business that generates at least $5,000 in revenue per month.

For example, if my niche business is about the best golf balls, I want my analysis to show at least 10,000 people per month searching Google for the root niche of “golf balls”. In this case, there are more than 70,000 such monthly searches, so this topic successfully meets the search volume criterion.

For my business AssociatePI, only 70 people per month search for my root niche of the Associate in Personal Insurance Certification. That does not meet the search volume criterion; I could not build a profitable business in that niche. However, more than 12,000 people search for the CPCU Designation per month. My root niche of CPCU does meet the search volume criterion and is thus a viable niche topic.

Five subtopics with search volumes above 500

You should be able to identify at least five subtopics in your niche that could be the cornerstones of your business. These are topics within your niche that you could turn into a product or service. Ideally, you want subtopics that people are searching for, so look for five subtopics that have a monthly search volume of 500 or higher. This ensures that you have topics of interest within your niche that people are searching for and can become the major purpose of your business.

Say, for example, that I have a business idea to create a program teaching the perfect golf swing. My root niche is golf swing, which has a search volume of 22,000. I want to see five subtopics in the golf swing niche with at least 500 searches per month; these are topics that could turn into cornerstone topics for your business. In this case, I see plenty of examples: golf swing trainer, golf swing basics, golf swing plane, best golf swing tips, and best golf swing app. Those are five strong, clearly defined subtopics that I can build into a business about the perfect golf swing, and each could later turn into a product or service that I sell on my website.

A search volume of 500 per month may not seem like a lot, but it is a good starting point. Five hundred searches, for five different topics, is an attainable market of 2,500 searches per month. If you can create content for these five topics and draw even half that search volume to your website, you have 1,250 people per month visiting your business. That is a good starting point and more than enough volume to turn a profit. If you convert just one percent of that traffic into sales of your $500 course, your business will be generating $6,000 per month in revenue; the average for eCommerce conversion is 2% to 5%. If you can sell a $20 membership to 1% of that traffic per month, you have a membership platform making $3,000 per month after just one year.

You will get more traffic to your website. You will expand upon these subtopics, and create more content that brings you even more traffic; this is just a starting point. This step, checking for five subtopics with at least five hundred searches each, is a baseline check to make sure that there are subtopics in your niche that people are searching for.

Ten keywords with KCs of 35 or less and search volumes of at least 100

The KC score ranges from 0 to 100 and indicates how easy or difficult it would be for your website to show up on the first page of Google when someone searches for that keyword. Anything under 30 is considered good, meaning there is less competition for that keyword, and those keywords will be highlighted in yellow or green in Long Tail Pro. I have found that a score of 35 or less is achievable, but the lower the KC score the better.

In Long Tail Pro, you want to see a healthy number of keywords with KC scores of 35 or less and lots of keywords highlighted in yellow or green. In Long Tail Pro, click the KC column to sort from low to high (because lower scores are better). Ideally, you should see at least 10 keywords in your niche with KC scores under 35 and search volumes of at least 100. This indicates that there are plenty of keywords in your niche that people are searching for but for which there is not a lot of competition. This is content you can create for your website such as blogs, podcasts, and videos that will drive traffic to your website.

This is different than the five subtopics you analyzed earlier in this process. A subtopic is something that can be a cornerstone of your website, something that people will know you for, something you can turn into a product or service. In this step, you are looking for basic topics, something that can be the subject of a blog post or a video that will drive traffic to your website. In the golf niche, for example, perfect golf swing might be a subtopic to which I dedicate a whole section of the website and create products teaching the perfect golf swing, whereas the keyword “how to swing drivers versus irons” is a keyword that can become content on my website. “How to swing drivers versus irons” is not necessarily a subtopic, but it is something I could write a blog about to drive traffic to my website. Although this step overlaps slightly with the subtopics, its primary goal is to confirm that there are at least 10 keywords in your niche with KC scores below 35 and search volumes above 100 that you could turn into content for your website.

Existing products and services

This is the only analysis we are doing in this section that takes place outside Long Tail Pro. Go to Google, and search for your niche. Look to see if there are other businesses selling products and services in that niche.

Competition is a good thing. You want to see that there is a market big enough for multiple businesses to thrive. You want confirmation that people are already buying products and services in your niche; that just makes your job easier. You do not want to create a new market, that is incredibly difficult. You want to find that there is already a need and thus a market for your business.

If there is already a market, your job becomes a lot easier, then your only job is to enter the market, find a differentiator for your business, and carve out your niche, because you know the demand is already there. I have a business idea in the golf swing niche. When I analyze the golf swing niche, I see plenty of existing products and services. I see private golf lessons, online courses, video tutorials, and gadgets to fix your golf swing. That is good to see; it means people are spending money in this niche. You want to know that people are spending money in your niche before you launch your business. If no one is spending money in your niche, you will not be able to sell your products and services.

Carry out this analysis for each of your business ideas, using this as a checklist. Make sure your business idea meets the criteria of this checklist. If it doesn’t, then your business is probably not viable.

Step 8: Repeat

Repeat this process for each of your 10 business ideas as a baseline viability check of your niche. Use the criteria from step 7 to determine whether there is business potential for each of your ideas and filter out any ideas that do not have a large market size or do not offer niche potential.

By the end of this blog, you will select three ideas from your list to continue researching throughout the rest of this mini-series. Make sure to go through this analysis in full; it will help you determine which of your ideas are viable and offer the best potential.

Narrow Your List: Choose Three

Look back at your research. At this point, you have done a deep dive into 10 business ideas using Long Tail Pro. You have completed the eight-step analysis process and tested the market potential of each of your ideas. If you have not yet done so, stop now and go back to Step 1 in the process described above. Go through the eight-step Long Tail Pro analysis for each of your ten business ideas. This is a critical activity. You need to validate your market and niche potential before launching your business.

Choose Three

Before moving on to Part Four of the mini-series, choose the three best business ideas from your list. Use the analysis from this section to determine which three ideas offer the best market potential, narrowing your list from ten to three ideas. Take a look at your research on each of your 10 ideas and ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there at least 10,000 searches per month of the root niche?
• Are there five subtopics in this niche with at least 500 searches each?
• Are there 10 keywords with KC scores of 35 or less and at least 100 searches each?
• Are other businesses already selling products and services in this niche?

If your business idea does not meet any of these criteria, it likely means the market is too small. Consider pivoting the idea; otherwise, remove it from your list of potential businesses. If more than three of your ideas meet all of the criteria above and thus show promising market potential, ask yourself the following questions:

• Which three ideas am I most excited about?
• Which three ideas offer the best opportunity in terms of market size and subtopics?
• Which three ideas offer the best opportunity for profitability based on the products and services offered by competitors in this niche?

Before moving on to Part Four, choose your three best business ideas, based on the results of your Long Tail Pro analyses. You will continue to research these ideas and choose the very best business idea by the end of this mini-series.

Summary – I Have a Business Idea, Now What?

Use Long Tail Pro to analyze the market size for each of your ideas. Long Tail Pro is a powerful business idea validation tool. This is the best way to test your business idea, and validate the market potential of your ideas. If people are searching for your topic on Google, there is an opportunity to build a niche business. If no one is searching for your niche, you should avoid that idea.

To test your business idea, sign up for the Long Tail Pro free trial at theentrepreneurridealong.com/longtailpro. Create a new project for your business idea and adjust the settings according to your specifications. Once you have set up Long Tail Pro, enter at least twenty seed keywords related to your business idea and run the analysis through Long Tail Pro. Review the keyword suggestions for your business idea and use the following criteria questions to validate the market of your business idea:

• Are there at least 10,000 searches per month of the root niche?
• Are there five subtopics in this niche with at least 500 searches each?
• Are there 10 keywords with KC scores of 35 or less and at least 100 searches each?
• Are other businesses already selling products and services in this niche?

As you go through this analysis, ask yourself if there is a subset of your idea that is more specific that could be your business? Look in Long Tail Pro, analyze the results, and see if there is a niche within your niche that could be the focus of your business.

Spend the next two hours conducting this analysis in Long Tail Pro for each of your ten business ideas. This is a critical step, use this business idea validation tool (it’s free). You need to test your business idea. You need to validate your market and niche potential before launching your business. Before moving on to the next part of this mini-series, choose the three best ideas from your list. Use the analysis from this blog to determine which ones offer the best market potential and narrow your list from ten ideas to three. Now that I have a business idea, I can continue on to Part Four of the online business ideas case study.

Continue The Online Business Idea Mini-Series

Continue with the online business idea mini-series. Continue on to the next section of the mini-series below:

• Part 1: What Type of Business Should I Start (Why You Should Be Starting an Online Business)
• Part 2: I Want to Start a Business, But Have No Ideas (Business Idea Generator Exercise)
• Part 3: I Have a Business Idea. Now What? – How To Test Your Business Idea (With Long Tail Pro)
• Part 4: Online Business Revenue Streams – How to Make Money with Ecommerce Revenue Models
• Part 5: Validate and Choose the Best Online Business Idea (Your Most Profitable Business Idea)
• Part 6: Next Steps -How to Build an Online Business (The Steps for Starting a Profitable Online Business)
• Step One: The Surprisingly Simple Process To Research, Validate, And Choose The Perfect Online Business Idea (access the full book here)

Ready to Start Your Business?

If you find yourself saying “I want to start a business, but I don’t know what to do,” this is the book for you. In Step One you will research, validate, and choose the perfect online business idea. By the end of this book, you will come away with a business idea list, one validated business idea, and a plan to launch your first business.

Step One is all about taking action. With this book, you will come up with over one hundred and fifty business ideas, you will conduct market research to narrow your list of ideas down to one viable idea, and you will validate the idea so you can hit the ground running and launch your business.

Ready to start your business? Pick up your copy of Step One today, and get started today. By the end of this book, you will come away with the perfect idea–and plan–to launch your online business.