The Internet marketplace is becoming more crowded every day. There are soon going to be more Internet marketing companies than there are punters. Most Internet marketing consists of selling Internet marketing opportunities. The punter has seen it all before. The only people who fall for this ploy are total novices who still believe in fairies and treasure at the end of the rainbow.

What should you look for in a genuine Internet marketing or home business opportunity?

1. A tangible product that is totally unrelated to selling Internet marketing opportunities.

2. An affiliate scheme that gives you your own website.

3. A recognition by the provider that you must spend some cash promoting your affiliate link.

4. No up-front fee

Let's consider these points one at a time:

1. Tangible products can be as diverse as selling Self-Improvement courses and Personal Wedding Sites, but there must be one, otherwise you are just putting all your hopes into a Multi-Level Marketing scheme that is doomed to fail.

2. Affiliate schemes pay you a percentage of the price paid by the customer. Affiliate schmemes can make money, but 97 out of every 100 affiliates never make a cent because they fail to recognise the need to promote their affiliate link. You only earn money from people who buy by following your affiliate link.

3. Many affiliate schemes grow by providing a free website and going along with theoptimistic idea that all websites are found by search engines and that every one will make money. Search engines only find sites that have links pointing to them. If a search engine finds 2,000 identical sites, it only displays one, and that does not give you a lot of chance to sell anything.

4. All information is available for free on the Internet. An extremely small number of people have anything worthwhile to say that is not freely available. Those that do charge thousands of dollars for it, not $39.97. You are paying for promotion of the product, why should you pay for the opportunity to spend your money on advertising.

One more tip:

· Beware Information Overload. Research, choose one scheme and stick with it until it is earning money and no longer requires time spending on it. Only then should you join a new affiliate scheme. All schemes will make money if they are properly promoted. Avoid changing horses in the middle of the race. Avoid the temptation offered by this week's offering from some guru, who claims that his product offering will change the face of the Internet over the next three months, but that you must join immediately, or miss the benefits.