Niche market ideas aren't that difficult to find but the problem is picking on a profitable niche.

Lots of people are interested in cats, dogs, gardening, motoring and many other things but if you want to make money in affiliate marketing then niches which have a balance between popularity and huge amounts of competition are hard to come by.

If you're just starting out and looking for niche market ideas, don't go for the obvious such as weight loss, making money on the internet, working from home or forex trading. These niches can be enormously lucrative but the competition is fierce and the big boys won't give up a share of the market easily.

Alternatively, although niches such as cookery are very popular, most people can find the answers to their questions about techniques and recipes absolutely free, just by searching the internet, so they may not be "buying" people.

So how do you know what problems people are trying to solve and what are they buying? Here are just a few of the many ways to find niche market ideas.

- Look at Yahoo Answers, which by its very nature, is where people look for answers to their problems.
- Yahoo Shopping provides a list of top ranked products in each category. Browse these for niche market ideas.
- Amazon provides lists of best selling items in each category too. You could build a niche around one or a selection of these. Beware the electronics items though such as ebook readers and sat navs as these are very high competition.
- Shopping.com tells you the top searched for keywords in each category.
- Clickbank Marketplace category products can be sorted in order of popularity.
- Google Trends lists the most searched for phrases and these can be used to find niche market ideas.

There are lots of other ways of finding the right niche but once you have an idea don't forget to do more research in terms of competition.