While looking for a guide to nail down what to sell online, I came across the Thirty Day Challenge training from Caroline Middlebrook’s website. With a sign-up, I gained an invitation to pod casts and audio recordings of the tutorials which were delivered each work day over a period of 30 days.

Days One through Three of this online training course were primarily focused on places to get ideas on what to sell online. While the trainers do not specify which products specifically would make money online, they make a good attempt in providing tips and tools for users to figure this out on their own. Holistically, the coverage of the entire 30-day program encompasses:

• Market Research
• Build Traffic
• Conversion Strategies
• Creating a Product

Doing your Market Research

Searching for ideas offline

During the Market Research stage, students are required to come up with 7 niche product ideas to sell online. Offline sources are great ways to identify products and services which are in high demand. By visiting a mall or a market, you can discover new trends for niche ideas. Another offline idea generation channel would be the television. Watching television commercials would give you great ideas on interesting new products and services.

Markets to stay away from

While you can literally sell anything online, there ARE several major league categories that beginners should stay away from. These are competitive markets which are saturated and would be difficult to penetrate. Internet marketers who are just starting out would just end up losing their enthusiasm and quitting after a few failed attempts. Instead, it would be better for rookies to target special niche markets, gain small
successes and build themselves up from there. These are some of the markets newbies should stay away from:

• Getting fit and losing weight
• Dog training
• Vitamins & health related stuff
• Internet marketing
• Real estate
• Home mortgage

Online places to get Ideas

Ebay Pulse (http://pulse.ebay.com)

By analyzing information on eBay Pulse, we are in essence identifying what people are buying online.
Click through eBay categories and sub categories, and then analyze the list of Popular Search terms associated with each of these categories. From here, you can then formulate your own ideas to serve products that are great in demand. For example, if a Numark HDX CD MP3 Turntable player is a popular
product, then possible online product examples that you could sell based on this would be How to get DJ gigs at clubs, How to Operate an Digital Turntable Player, Cool Tricks with your Digital Turntable Player, etc.

Technorati (http://www.technorati.com)

Technorati is essentially a search engine for blogs, and provides essential information on what people are blogging about, as well as popular blogs. Just click on the Popular button to have a list of the top blogs
listed, with huge authority levels.

A review of the content and topics of these blogs will give you some ideas on what people are interested in. This is simply because these blogs need to consistently present topics that would appeal to their audience,
or they would risk losing their authority and subsequently their web traffic.

An example of a top authority blog would be Boingboing, which highlights interesting and unique products in the market. This is essentially a great site for idea starters.

Google and Yahoo! Groups
(http://groups.google.com and http://groups.yahoo.com)

Looking into forums and groups allow you to obtain ideas on what people are talking about. To do this, look at forums with high activity, but not necessarily a large number of members. Click on categories and look at the name of the groups for ideas on popular topics that people are discussing about. For instance, under the Home category in Google Groups, you may find interesting topics such as Home Repair, Frugal Living, Bargains and Discounts, Freshwater Aquarium and What Not To Wear Over 40. Thus, if you know what people are talking about, you can then sell or even produce online products to target these niches. Other groups you can look at in addition to Google Groups would be Yahoo! Groups. You can even click
on Best of Yahoo! groups to get a list of popular groups here.

Google Trends (http:/www.google.com/trends) and Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com)

Google Trends provides you with a list of the top keyword searches for a given day. A calendar lets you select a specific date you would like reported. Through this, you are able to discover what people are searching for online. By knowing what is in demand, you can then create online products to meet these demands.

Another place to look at is within the Categories section of Yahoo! Answers. Again, just by looking at some of the topics people are looking for answers for, you’ll have some good ideas on what you should be selling online. For the record, here are some pretty interesting questions found at Yahoo! Answers - Ways to get rid of ugly pimples, How to do waxing at home. Perhaps you can sell online information products to help out people with these issues!

Finally, with a long list of ideas in your hand, you can’t possibly attempt to sell everything. At this point, what you need to do is to prioritize on those that you should do first, and which shows the best potential. In the midst of this, there should be a match between your personal interest and your ideas. With this, you’ll find greater enjoyment in your new internet business ventures!