How to determine what a market needs and wants?

You really have to get in the mind of your potential customer. Don't just look at forums, etc. Think about who those people are...their age, location, gender, etc. Think about what those people go through on a day to day basis and what products or services could benefit them.

Yahoo answers can be valuable.

Keyword research can help you find needs and wants too

You can check out MyGoals.com and hopefully get some ideas as to what ppl are setting as goals in general. That should give you some food for thought.

I know some IMers have been known to get ebook ideas just by looking at MyGoals.com. May be worth doing your research!

Absolutely!

Check out this article written by Clayton Makepeace ...

"8 Ways to Spot Dominant Emotions Your Prospects Already Have That Could Drive Your Response Rates Through The Roof"

Copywriting techniques : Your prospect's Dominant Emotions | The Total Package

Alex

Here's a simple idea...

Pop into the Google Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and type in "how to [your market keyword]" without the quotes. For example, if your target market is fishing, then you would type in "how to fishing".

What you'll get are some common search phrases that pertain to your market, such as:

how to bass fishing (2,400 searches/month)
how to fly fishing (5,400 searches/month)
how to ice fishing (2,900 searches/month)
how to become fishing guide (480 searches/month)
how to fishing rigs (1,600 searches/month)
how to start barbarian fishing (58 searches/month) ???

Okay, now you have some good ideas for niche topics within the fishing market... and these are things that people are actually out there looking for on a month-to-month basis. But you can take it a step further and search for the particular phrase you've decided to target, i.e. "how to fishing lures". Then you get:

how to make fishing lures (2,400 searches/month)
how to use fishing lures (590 searches/month)

I'm sure you get the idea. Actually, this method will give you tons of ideas. :-)

It's all about knowing your consumer. I think the best approach is a holistic one. Id recommend leveraging multiple resources like Yahoo Answers, Google key word search tool, expert articles and market research. This will be the best way to know and understand what information will be of value to your target audience.

Bring them value - connect with them - and watch your list grow !!!

Alright thanks for the answers. So for instance I am getting into the weight loss niche. I did a search on google and of course its way to broad to compete in. I did another search looking at google suggest and through several iterations ended up with a keyword that is low in google keywords tool but has 300k + pages indexed. So this keyword and a few others have some windows of opportunity one of which was forums that had the exact keyword I was searching for. So there is obviously need for this product as well as some questions in yahoo answers and another answer site. I just want to make sure that I am doing my market research right before I go putting alot of time into designing the site.