A little background. In 2006 I knew nothing about sales by means of the internet. I jumped on one of those "Earn 300 Dollars a Day Following This Easy Step-by-Step Plan" packages and wasted a lot of time. But I came to my senses...after losing some money.

I sort of knew what I wanted to do even though I had never done it. I wanted to sell downloadable information ebooks. I had already bought some and saw how that went and I just liked the sales process...and I still do.

I think the reason that selling info products is so attractive to me is because I was in the furniture business for 30 years. I had grown tired of warehouses full of physical inventory. The internet looked good!

But I wasn't ready. I didn't know what to do. And, if I knew what to do I didn't know how to do it. I had to get past that stumbling block. And if you are anything like I was when this first caught my eye...you aren't ready, either.

So what do you need to know to make your way in Internet Marketing (IM)? I'm going to list ten specific skills that I deem absolutely necessary if you want to do this.

By the way, you haven't been told this before. You don't have to be an expert in the "ten skills" this article covers. You just need to know your way around in it. That's one of the keys to getting rid of that whole overwhelmed feeling that nails us all at times.

First, you have to get to know the the language used here. I found a good online internet marketing school and put myself in there! I studied and learned and I think that had a lot to do with my sticking with it after my horrible start. (If you search article directories for Riley West as author you can laugh at my horrible start. The title is "How to Get a Good Start in Internet Marketing.")

The second thing you have to learn is how to put up a simple one page website. Don't panic! It's easy. Once I got over being intimidated by the thought I just got into it and banged one out. The first website I made was pretty bad. The second a little better. Now I have done 40 or 50 and my sites work just fine. I keep them simple.

Using a webpage editor isn't much more difficult than a word processor is to learn. You'll see how it's sort of the same thing. Just do it! You'll be proud of yourself.

The third thing you need to have is a domain name and hosting. That's simple too! Your domain name is your website internet address (URL) and your hosting company is the outfit that puts your files on their servers that are hooked up to the net.

Fourth, the autoresponder. Sounds odd but isn't. All marketers use them and it seems that most use an outfit called Aweber. This ingenious software allows you to stay in communication with your website visitors by email and increases the odds of you making a sale by quite a bit! It's a known statistic that the average sale is made on the 7th or 8th contact.

So, if you want to be way below average in sales just DON"T use an autoresponder! Without an autoresponder you'll only make one contact and you won't have their name! Automatic followup. Very effective and easy too...once you have worked through it.

The fifth item necessary for success in IM is a keyword tool. Use Googles keyword tool. It's FREE, it's easy to use and it has excellent tutorials. Google is a huge company on the net and they have many things for you, most of which are FREE! Try to beat that. Get familiar with Google. You'll be glad you did. Another thing I recommend is Google Analytics, also free. But that would make eleven and this is the "ten" list.

Sixth skill to acquire - Traffic Generation. It's absolutely critical. If you have the best website in the world it won't sell a thing unless somebody comes to it. But not just anybody. You want "targeted traffic."

Here's the example I like. If you are selling tires you want people with bald tires to see your offer!

The internet allows us to drive the correct traffic to our websites. That would be people who want to buy what you have to sell. There are dozens of ways to drive targeted traffic to the right offers...you just have to study traffic generation for a while. Then, pick a method to concentrate on. Stick with it until it works. They all work, you just have to get it right.

The seventh thing you'll want is a way for people to buy something from you. I mean pay for it. Give you money! There are many ways. A simple way is Paypal. It's what I use. Just open an account. It's FREE! They charge you a little transaction fee per sale. They handle it all.

I think for number eight we should start a blog. You can use Blogger or Wordpress.org, since they are free, but I recommend against it. If you don't have your blog hosted on your own account then you don't have full control. Get this... Wordpress.org doesn't allow affiliate links or selling! And we are Marketers! So, remember, wordpress.com hosted on your own hosting company is the way you want to go.

Blogs can be low maintenance traffic generators! When you write about your topic you will include certain keywords that will cause your article to come up for someone searching on that keyword or phrase."

Google spiders like blogs. I do too! So my setup is that my main site is a wordpress blog hosted by a company I chose. My blog is surrounded by salespage websites with links to the posts. An elegant solution. Try it!

It looks a little like a solar system. The Blog is in the middle and the salespages are the satellites.

The ninth skill you'll need is FTP. File Transfer Protocol. Don't panic. It's easy. At first I uploaded files to my site by hand, one at a time, the hard way because I knew how to do that. Don't even bother learning the hard way. Use FTP. By the way, the one file at a time by hand method is very cool when you want to make a small change on one page. I can correct a typo in 2 minutes. I just go right in there and correct it.

There are two very good FTP programs that are FREE! You cannot beat that price. Cyberduck or Filezilla. My guess is that when they are free you can call them anything you want!

The tenth thing I think you need for a simple start to this business is a course of easy lessons that are designed to bring you from totally new to making money. I know...lots of people say they can give you this. I have only found two and I looked long and hard.

These are the ten things I did. These skills made it possible for me to set up money making info-websites and a blog. I could have done better, though. I spent too much time studying and not enough time settling down and sticking with one thing.

That's what I'm doing now. I'm sticking with it. I'm moving it forward every day. My goal is to have my little operation making enough money on a regular basis that I can hire an assistant. There's my goal. What's yours?

Thank you...I'll see you at my blog.

Riley West - An Oregon pioneer making his way in the trade.