How to Use Google to Spot a Million Dollar Business Idea

Are you having trouble finding a big, profitable idea to catapult you into millionaire status, so you can enjoy life in way that so few on this planet ever do?

Inspired by an uber interesting blogpost I read recently, I decided it might be a good idea to show you guys how 3 simple and free online tools from Google can help you spot million dollar business ideas with just a few minutes of work.

*Note: the ideas will come more easily, but you’ll still have to work to build an actual million dollar business!

Finding a million-dollar business idea

Keyword Planner

The Google Keyword Planner is part of Adwords. It’s used mainly by advertisers and businesses seeking to find just the right mix of keywords to rank their marketing websites, vlogs, and blogs in the Google-verse. But that’s not all this handy tool is good for. It’s also a great idea generator – or “ideator” as many in the online world now call any tool that helps to spark creativity.

How it works:

Google Keyword Planner screenshot

The team at Google walk you through how to use the tool and all its features if you’ve never used it before in this handy guide.

While nothing legitimate is going to jump out of the screen and tell you “Hey, do this and you’ll make millions,” it’s never been easier to aggregate great business ideas using the Keyword planner. Type in any random term that relates to a business that interests you, or just start typing random words and word strings if you don’t have a clue what you’re looking for yet.

Consider you have interest in starting a website or business to help people fix their autoimmune disorder:

After typing the term “autoimmune disorder” into the tool and keeping the category options set to the default “all categories”, you can see from the image above that there are a few juicy ideas that have come up, which you may not have thought of on your own. For instance, there are a few ideas I can see on the page which could be made into an online business rather quickly:

  • Autoimmune doctor: Be a go-between for patients and doctors (ie., lead gen). This could be very profitable. Start local and go international.
  • Thyroid autoimmune disease: Thyroid disease of all kinds are on the rise because of all the chemicals and radiation in our environment. Help people find a cure – or relief – and that’s yet another way to build a profitable business.
  • Cure autoimmune disease: Provide a legitimate cure for any problem that plagues people and you’re well on your way to making millions.

I chose this random word as an example, just to show you how one word can spark a few smart ideas. By no means, would I guarantee you can make millions in that sector of the healthcare/natural healthcare industry. But you definitely could, if you put it all together in the right package!

Trends

Google Trends is another wicked free online tool you can use to identify a potential million dollar business idea. As with the Google Keyword Planner, simply type in any word related to a topic of interest – or a string of random words – and the search tool will come back with any and all searches that have been performed over the last several years. The great thing about this is you can search by country, region, timeline, category and even find out which Google search category people chose when doing their search.

How it works:

Google Trends screenshot

Trends is pretty easy to use, but if you’re new and need to learn the ropes, the Google Trends help guide will teach you everything you need to know before you start using it. Once again, this tool isn’t going to hand over the straight goods and make you an overnight success without any work on your part. It will give you tons of aggregated data to sift through, related to the terms you input, and help to get the wheels turning in your head.

To keep you on the right track, let’s choose the term “autoimmune disorder” again, to further examine this potential business idea. You could also do a search on the top terms described from the last paragraph, but I’d like to see what info Trends gives us on the original term, to see if it has enough search queries to be a viable business. Given that this particular category of health problem is on the rise, it may well be a billion dollar industry in the coming decades when considering population overcrowding, ozone depletion, pollution, etc.

The image above is just a snapshot of what comes up after typing in the chosen topic and keeping the category drop-downs set to the default “all categories”.

You can scroll through the yearly trending numbers to see if that term is a growing interest, or a dead or dying fad that’s been waning down over the years. Also, both country and regional interest in the keyword can be closely examined to find out who’s searching for answers the most. Last, a list of other related keywords are displayed which can also be later searched to help refine a great business plan or idea.

All in all, looking at all the extended data not shown in the images, “autoimmune disorder” is a term that’s searched for by people every single month, on every continent, and in every country. I’m sure an extended search using this term translated to different languages would produce several hundreds of extra searches in each of the major languages (which would be the next step if I were building an international website, ebook, or physical product to fix different kinds of autoimmune diseases.)

3. Autocomplete

Google’s Autocomplete feature is extremely easy to use. There’s no sign up or sign in necessary to use it. I could have listed this simple, yet robust tool first on the list, as it’s a great first step to help expand on an initial idea.

How it works:

Google Autocomplete screenshot

As soon as you type a few letters, entire word, or string of words into the Google search bar, Autocomplete kicks in and gives you some of the most popular searches in its database to choose from. Let’s look at what comes up for “autoimmune disorder”:

As you can see, Autocomplete has generated a couple of more specific business ideas that can be used to potentially launch a business worth millions of dollars:

  • Autoimmune disease diet: Autoimmune diseases are caused primarily by the environment and what we ingest. Selling diets and diet-related products is very profitable for any ailment (ie., look at the weight loss industry).
  • Autoimmune diseases in dogs/animals: People love their pets. The pet care industry’s projected to be near $14-billion in 2016 (source).

Autocomplete is one of my favorite tools for coming up with ideas, hands down.

Takeaway: Extended Reading

For a more detailed breakdown of how to use these powerful Google tools to help identify keywords and trends that can help you stumble on a million dollar idea, read this great case study I mentioned in the opening which was completed by the staff at Local Digital.

They used the tools to figure out what Australians were thinking and saying about the country’s current political landscape. The infographic below clearly shows how one can glean remarkable and useful information from these Google tools in minutes.

We Googled The Australian Political Landscape - An Infographic from Local Digital