Business Plan Resources

Researching a Business Idea

<Back to Business Plan Resources     Next: International Research Links

About. This amazing website offers articles by more than 750 experts on a range of subjects. It’s useful for finding information on different topics and has a handy “See What’s Hot Now” link where you can learn which questions and topics are getting the most hits.

Blogs. These are personal journals published on the Web. Blogs include personal reflections, opinions on a variety of issues, and usually include links to the owner’s favorite sites.

BoardReader. This remarkable service reads forums and message boards from more than 750,000 websites. Just click on the link and enter your search words to find information, images or videos from many sources.

Ebay Keywords. Click on the link to discover a list of the most popular keyword searches at Ebay. This tool helps identify how buyers are finding what they want or need.

E-zines. Tile.net hosts many e-zines, mailing lists and related information. EzineArticles is one of the largest collections of articles from more than 150,000 expert authors.

Google Trends. This service enables you to plug in key words or topics and instantly pull up charts and graphs showing broad search patterns and links to the relevant websites and articles that drive them.

Google Insights. This site  lets you search terms and topics and filter by country, region and timeframes. It produces a map showing the regional hot spots for your topic, as well as lists of related search terms.

Google Groups. At this link you can search through existing group discussion forums or easily set up your own groups for topics of your choice.

MediaFinder. This website claims to be the world’s largest database of U.S. and Canadian magazines, catalogues, newspapers, newsletters and journals. Use the keyword search box to locate media for topics you wish to research.

<Back to Business Plan Resources     Next: International Research Links