The market of Internet home based businesses is on a rise for 2009.  With the recent recession hitting populations from America to Canada, even as far as Japan, people are searching for alternative career solutions more than ever.  The challenge here is that the “work from home” niche is becoming very saturated and extremely competitive – and this translates into a need for exclusive, specific products and services for 2009.

With Internet marketing gurus popping up around every corner and dorm students generating 6 figure income streams, there is very little room in the larger, more trafficed marketplaces.  On the plus side, this creates a unique opportunity for new players in the game to step in and claim there spot within the overlooked sub-markets that are in need of specialized information.

The trick for new marketers is to analyze the market and find a sub-niche with decent traffic and little competition – then combine your passions with expertise to ensure your efforts are matched with profits and success.

Here are 2 ways to identify hot niche trends for 2009:

1.  Check The Web – Use a combination of keyword research tools, like Wordtracker, and frequent popular marketplaces like eBay and Amazon to conduct your initial research.  Make a list of your various passions or areas of expertise and input these keywords into your research tools and identify the profitability by looking at the supply and demand information i.e. daily search traffic and competing websites.

Once you’ve identified the competition, visit their websites and take a look at what they are offering and how you can provide a more specialized product or service to the potential traffic.

2.  Check Your Community – Offline research is often overlooked, and can be very effective.  I’m a big fan of visiting local bookstores to see what titles are positioned in the “featured” section when you first walk into the store.  Try to identify any common trends among the book titles and make note of this.

If your niche is targeting intermediate golfers, go to your local mall and check out the sports gear stores.  Check out the golf section and take a peak at the sales and popular brands – even go as far as talking to a sales associate and asking them what brands/products have been selling good lately.  You’d be surprised the information you can get when you do a little bit of offline marketing!