Evaluating an online business opportunity is an important first step in taking your business to the Web.

You can evaluate 2 types of business opportunities: validating an opportunity you have created or evaluating an existing online business. In both cases, existing online tools can help you.

The Important of Keywords

No matter how unique or successful your online business opportunity appears to be, if Internet users aren't searching for it, chances are you won't be able to maintain the success.

Every website has keywords imbedded both in the content that users see and in the underlying metadata they don't see.

More than a third of retail customers use search engines to find the online business they're searching for. And it's the keywords that drive this process.

So, doing a keyword search for the online business opportunity you want to evaluate will let you know how many people are searching for that word or phrase each month. (Google has a free, easy-to-use keyword search tool.)

If the number is low, you will know that few people are interested in the business.

Drilling Into Keywords

If the number of monthly searches for your keyword is high, you most likely are considering an online business in which there already is a lot of competition.

This doesn't necessarily mean it is not a valid opportunity for you to consider. But it does mean that you would have to find a way to separate yourself from the pack so that your site would rank high when customers search.

One way to do this is by finding variants on the popular keyword and using them on your site.

Listening to Others

Less reliable but still important, checking out the many communities on the Internet is a useful tool in validating an online opportunity.

By searching for the particular opportunity you are considering, you will not only find sales sites but discussion boards as well. Visit these or join them and hear what others are saying.

This is a place you can ask questions as well.

But here's a word of caution. Anyone can say anything on the Internet. Just because someone has a negative or positive opinion of a particular opportunity doesn't mean it's so.

Gather a variety of opinions. You'll quickly learn who is speaking without bias and who has an ax to grind.

User Reviews

When evaluating an existing online business opportunity, check out user reviews. These are different from the discussion boards we just talked about. With user reviews, you get the user's view of how the business operates and what to watch out for.

The same thing about reliability applies here.

Don't base an opinion on 1 or 2 reviews. A negative review could reflect 1 bad experience in an otherwise well-run online business. Similarly, a good review can be written by a friend, or what they call a "shill" online, beefing up the positive remarks.

In any online business opportunity that you evaluate, you want to be certain there is a concept customers want and that you can contribute something new, different, or better that will set you apart. And you not only have to have a good product and excellent service, you'll need a well-constructed site that users can find.