With the new year around the corner, it's a good time to look at new business trends and which business ideas are attracting the most interest from business buyers. We reviewed our website data of 15,000 page views over ten weeks in the fourth quarter of 2020 to answer the question: what digital business trends for 2021 can we expect in the year ahead? 

Some key findings before we count down to number one:

• Five of the seven "most sought after" businesses are b2b solutions.
• COVID impact: "interactive video" landed high up in our rankings, as companies deal with remote management throughout the pandemic.
• Recurring revenue (vs. transactional): buyers are seeking a model that continues to deliver dollars, versus one that is focused on individual sales.

Read on from #7 to #1 for insights into what business buyers are seeking now.

#7 SEO Tools

Optimizing not just traffic, but relevant traffic to your website is the heart of SEO. A good Google or Bing ranking can drive a lot of organic traffic to a website. But the pieces that make up a good ranking rely on data analysis and an understanding of competitors. Software solutions for SEO challenges are frequently SaaS models.

#6 Email Services

Email marketing services for businesses consist of ways to make email campaigns easier and more effective. They typically have a CRM integration but also consist of apps, plug-ins and platform solutions and employ a SaaS model. Email outreach is popular with companies, because it typically has a higher ROI.

#5 Affiliate Content

These are content-based sites that could be blogs, product reviews, or magazine articles. These content sites usually focus on a particular interest or hobby and make money through the posting of ads on their site with an affiliate network partner. Site owners get paid based on the amount of traffic or views/clicks of the ad by customers.

#4 Niche eCommerce

This includes Shopify retail sites and other eCommerce. These retailers either fulfill goods themselves or through a third party such as Amazon FBA or dropship warehouses. Niche products would be accessories or tightly focused product selections such as personal gear, pantyhose, or women's tunics. Most of these sites cater to consumers but niche products for businesses are also a strong category.

#3 Cloud Service Providers

These are network services provided to organizations, which can be application or data based. Essentially, these third parties are providing an infrastructure solution through their remote servers. Typically, companies pay for the data they use but applications are likely to involve a more set recurring charge.

#2 Interactive Video

Video applications for highlighting content. This is a twist on the Zoom type of video where you view, talk and chat with people. This format allows viewers to connect with individual products or information and take an action to learn more. Most of the revenue streams are SaaS based models with retailers or other consumer facing businesses.

#1 Enterprise Software

This is software geared to helping businesses manage their day-to-day business activities such as procurement, accounting, project management, supply chains, risk management and compliance. Many of these businesses follow recurring revenue models and service other medium to large company organizations.

That's everything. Hope you found these industry findings to be revealing. If the company acquisition route intrigues you, browse our technology and other Internet businesses for sale. 

Read about digital transformation trends for 2022.