One of the first problems a newbie to internet marketing encounters is how to find a market niche. How do we go about finding these niches?

Well what is a niche? Its simply a section of a market. Its not for example the dieting market as a whole but it might be dieting for children or losing weight with the newest diet.Its a question of "drilling down" and finding the sector that might suit you.

The importance of finding a niche cannot be overstated but its not easy to find one that is not over populated with other internet marketers or alternatively is not overpopulated with potential customers! Where do you or I start? Well I got thinking about this while I was looking at Ebay. There are a lot of niches in there.

Niches are everywhere and you have to get into the mindset of looking for them. Obviously not all of them will make money and you have to find a decent sized market. There might be a number of people collecting crisp packets or old horseshoes and they might be fanatical about it but there may only be a small number involved and it might not be a market that either interests you or you haven't got a product to sell to them. Unless you have a lot of old horseshoes lying around that is.

Think about what interests you. Find your passion and do some research. If you like gardening, is there a specific part of it that you really love? Is it looking at seed cataloged, propagating, digging or no dig, flowers or vegetables? Think niche within niche.

Here are a few sites to get you thinking.
Ebay
If you go into the categories list on the left hand side, for example Home and Garden, you will get a list of categories within that category. In this example, there are sub categories such as Hydroponics and Seed Starting; Pest and Weed Control; Planters,Pots and Window Boxes and Plants Seeds and Bulbs. Scroll to the bottom and you will see popular searches.This will give you some ideas of what might be selling well in that category.

In association ,with this, may I present EBay Pulse www.pulse.ebay.com. I hadn't heard of this until recently and you may not have done either but its worth a look.It gives a daily snapshot of current trends and popular stuff on eBay. Again it may give you some ideas.

Have a look at Google Trends. Its updated daily and gives you an idea of whats going on. It gives the top 10 but you can drill down and see more.

Another site to look at is www.Digg.com. It's a social bookmarking site. People post stories which others vote on.For every user that "diggs it" the count goes up and the story gets promoted. It gives a flavor of what people are finding interesting at a particular moment in time. Think laterally, get the ideas.There might be a niche there.

You could try Google News as well.Apart from keeping you up to date, you can search against specific terms and see if there has been anything happening or any new press releases which might give you an idea for another niche.

What about thinking seasonally? You have to plan in advance but Christmas would be a great time to think about selling gadgets, jewelery, toys etc. Another angle could be helping those people with the emotional or financial fall out. If you had access to a product that helped with those then there might be a market there.

If despite all of this, you are still finding it difficult to think of a topic, try some brainstorming. Draw a mind map.Think of a topic and write it in the middle, then draw lines radiating away from it and lines radiating from them. For example, lets say its beer.(a topic close to my heart!).Think, different types, breweries countries famous for their beer, methods of production, things used in manufacture, history etc. Then draw lines off those words and think of more words that associate with your main word and the word it is branching off. The idea is to create a chart of ideas by brainstorming. Use a thesaurus if it helps. Get your mind thinking.

So brainstorm,visit relevant websites and keep an eye at what's happening around you.

Got some potential niches now? Good. Now you need to research them. That's another topic altogether!