It is possible to be successful at Internet Marketing, and many people are making a nice living at it right now. For the most part, It is not (as many advertisers would claim) a “get-rich-quick” method and it's not something that can be set up to run on auto-pilot. It will take work and lots of time, and the more time spent putting a good foundation in place, the better guarantee there is of future success.

For a newbie Internet Marketer, there is a bewildering variety of products currently available (both free and subscription-based) and it can be a daunting and a time-consuming prospect to sift through all the offers and promotions available, and choose something definite to promote and market. Anyone starting out could be forgiven for thinking that it's all a “walk in the park” to be an online success. “Spin” is rife among marketers and it is difficult to get sound, unbiased information.

At the end of the day, to be a success online, two things are essential. (I am assuming here that you have a personal website, or blog. If not, it is very easy to set one up).

1.You must drive traffic to your website

2.You must have a list of subscribers

No. 1 will provide growth to no. 2. Your subscriber list will be your main source of revenue, so it's important to work on the marketing of your site and build your online presence.

It is possible to earn a good living on the Web if you don't have either of these. For example, you can carry out your business through affiliate marketing or through selling on Ebay. There are many others, like report writing, that are beyond the scope of this article. Two things that will be necessary however if you go the “no-website” route: an email address and a PayPal account.

But for the purposes of this article, the assumption is that you have your own website. Cast an objective look at the home page, and ask yourself if it is a website that you would spend some time looking around. There must be something unique about it, something that will intrigue visitors and make them want to find out more. Have your “opt-in list” panel in a prominent position, near the top with a heading referring to a free offer. This could be a useful guide that you have resell rights to, or a weekly or monthly newsletter. If you can juxtapose a graphic of the report , better still.

And it's very important to aim for “repeat traffic”. So that your readers will want to revisit again and again, keep your blog updated frequently. This will help to increase the interest level, and it will give you better page rank with search engines, because they always register new content.

Trackbacks are another great marketing tool – that is, html links to other blogs which have content relevant to yours. They help to increase visibility with search engines, and with other readers.