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10 HOT Niche Market Research Sites

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How do you know what people want buy online?

Fortunately, a number of sites make answering that question very simple by publishing weekly, monthly, and annual trends; interest comparisons, top lists and market research reports. Various online services publish the number of times keywords and phrases are searched over a given period of time.

Here are 10 of my favorite market research sites and services.

  1. Google Trends lets you compare the world's interest in your chosen niche markets.

    For example, I entered ‘coffee' and ‘tea' and discovered some significant spikes in the interest in coffee (shown in the graphic below).

    You may enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched for on Google over time. It also displays how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and which geographic regions have searched for them most often.

  2. Google's Insights for Search lets you compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. Check out the examples of how you can use Google Insights for Search accessible from the homepage – you can go DEEP with this one!

  3. Magazines.com lists their 10 Top Titles on their homepage.

    At the time of writing, these included Sports Illustrated For Kids, Time, People, InStyle, Woman's Day, Money, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Women's Health and Disney Adventures.

    So what topics do we see there? Sports, general news, women's issues, fashion, kids and finances.

  4. eBay Pulse is a daily snapshot of current trends, hot picks, and cool stuff on eBay, listing popular searches, largest stores and most watched items.

    Alhtough eBay Pulse page shows an overview of the entire eBay marketplace, you can use the drop-down menu to refine and filter the lists to show content for specific categories on eBay.

  5. Yahoo's Buzz Index focuses on the entertainment industry, providing their most popular searches on a daily basis for actors, movies, music, sports, TV and video games.

  6. comScore Networks provides insight into consumer behavior and attitudes by compiling reports based on a global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore explicit permission to capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing.

  7. Juniper Research provides research, analysis and advice to help guide technology vendors and service providers on market opportunity. Guest access is available, however, to quickly gain access to salient sections of recent Jupiter Research reports, try Googling “juniper research ____” (_____) being the name of the topic you wish to study.

  8. Amazon best sites for doing market research. Search any of their departments, i.e. books or baby or and you'll see either a link for Bestsellers or Top Sellers as well as:

    • Hot New Releases
    • Most Gifted
    • Most Wished For
    • Movers & Shakers

  9. Google Adwords Keyword Tool is also a free tool that reports on search performance and seasonal trends on keywords and keyword phrases that you enter into the search box. Statistics show the relative amount of users searching for that keyword on Google.

    Google Adwords Keyword Tool

  10. WordTracker shows you exactly what people are looking for online by showing you exactly which keywords and phrases they're searching for. Wordtracker's suggestions are based on over 330 million keywords and phrases that people have used over the previous 90 days.

    Although Wordtracker offers a free trial, I recommend that the week-long pass for $27.59 is really worthwhile if you want to do justice to your market research!

Whether it's golf, gardening or grandfather clocks you want to sell, use the sites recommended above to find out how much of a potential market exists BEFORE you make the leap to a full-scale site on the subject.

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Comments

  1. Mozie says

    Hi Rosalind, I just wanted to say a special thanks for this article, I never heard of JupiterResearch and Google in-sights yet, they look fantastic. Doing niche market research for a new product I am creating and this was quite helpful.

  2. Jay says

    Another idea is to take a look at Alexa and find the top few hundred most visited websites.

    They are the most visited for a reason they are offering products, or services that people want.

  3. James Hughes says

    Hi it’s my first time over here.

    Thanks for this great post, stumbled across it when I was seaching
    for categories for my new eBay store.

    Thanks

    James Hughes

  4. Make Money Online says

    This is a lovely list. A lot of websites are suggesting particular niches online to focus on. However, what you provided are tools for us to find out ourselves what niches people are looking for solutions or are searching online.

    This is good because, what people look for changes constantly and we could never tell with finality what are top niches. Thanks for providing information on top online niche search tools.

    Lance Clancy 🙂

  5. Darren Dillman says

    Rosalind,

    What do you think of the new keyword grouping feature in the Google Keyword Tool?

    I really like it. Saves quite a bit of time from doing it myself and can do quicker research on potential niches.

    Thanks..

  8. Shalisha says

    Hi Briand. I am having difficulty understanding how to use/read the information on google trends, etc. Can you or somebody explain it to me?

  9. Briand. says

    HI. It’s very useful for marketers for their research and success. I get useful tools and info to my markets research. Thanks

  10. Computer Technician Jobs says

    I use these from time to time but don’t lean on them as I should. Thanks for the reminder.

  11. T1 Service says

    I have been using Google’s services for quite a while, and I am familiar with Wordtracker as well, but I didn’t realize until now that you can use Amazon and Magazines.com for niche research as well!! Great information to have, and thanks!

  12. Shalisha says

    Hi Ros. I am so glad you provide us with valuable resources. I am still learning how to use the research and am still in the process of understanding what I’m reading on them. But it’s good to know that you are here for us. Thanks.

    • Rosalind Gardner says

      Hi LAM,

      Thanks kindly for your comment. I’ve changed Zeitgeist to Insights per your observation – better service, anyway.

      Thanks too for your addtions to the list.

      Cheers,
      Ros

  16. Eddie Gear says

    Nice list you have there Rosalind. I’ve been through the sites and have got some good info and find them very useful in my work.

    Cheers,
    Eddie Gear

  17. John Gregory says

    Brilliant Article. I have used most of these over time but it’s great to have you remind me of all the great tools we have as Internet marketers to better research our markets. Keep up the Great work Ros.

    Cheers, John Gregory

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