The Internet is a great communications tool as well as a wonderful research tool. It brings us together as a society and helps us understand one another in ways never before conceived of in the history of human development.

But more importantly...it's a great way to make buckets of money really quickly!

That's what I'd like to talk about today in this article. Many people have a hard time getting started with Internet marketing because there are so many different methods available and so many different ways to do it that people often get confused or blindsided with information overload.

So what exactly do you need in order to get started with Internet marketing? Basically it comes down to one of two choices. You can either make money by selling your own product or service, or you can do so by promoting somebody else's product or service as an affiliate marketer.

Of course there are other ways to make money online such as building the next Facebook or selling advertising on popular blog but these are definitely tougher for the ordinary person to get started in so I'll just focus on the first two that I mentioned above.

Which is easier, building your own product or selling somebody else's? That's a question that only you can answer. Some people are natural entrepreneurs and can come up with their own products at the drop of a hat while other people couldn't build their own product if they tried for the rest of their lives.

You know yourself what kind of person you are in this regards most likely. Because of this, many people get started initially as an affiliate marketer and I think this is a great way to go. All you have to do is find a product that is popular and start promoting it yourself online.

Of course there a million ways to get started selling an affiliate product online and I don't have time to go into all of those details in this article today.

But as a general business model, the best thing to do is start a website or a blog related to the product you are promoting.

For instance if you're going to be promoting high end fashion sun tan lotion, build a blog about summer vacations or exotic beach reviews or something like that. That way you can build up a following of people who are interested in the general area of the product that you're selling (you can't go to the beach without suntan lotion!).

At the same time create an e-mail list using one of the popular auto responder services such as aWeber.

Once you build up an e-mail list you can begin sending them offers for the product that you're selling. At that point it's just a matter of growing your e-mail list and continuing to send them offers over time. It really doesn't have to get much more difficult than that.

Hopefully this article has given you a few ideas of how to crack into the Internet marketing industry. It's a lot of fun and can be incredibly fulfilling so I wish you all the luck.

J.P. Morton runs a Francis Francis Espresso Maker web site where he also reviews the best first espresso machine. He has been an article writer online for well over 13 years and also enjoys boating and fishing.