• An online presence: If you don't show up on the search engine results, you're as good as invisible which isn't a good thing. If you can't or are not able to set up a WordPress blog or a website, it's going to be difficult to maintain an online presence.

• Lead generation: A business without customers is dead in the water. Whether it's bringing inbound traffic via a content site or a blog, or heading out to bring traffic in via PPC (pay per click), articles, classified ads, or ezine advertising or social bookmarking, you will need some form of traffic generation in place, which can then be converted into prospects who will then be converted into customers.

• Customer engagement/customer relationship management: Internet marketing as an industry needs to move beyond the single sale, into building customer relationships like in the real world. Savvy merchants are already picking up on this, and smart affiliates will move beyond just a single sale to building up email databases (ie: customer databases) to build relationships with customers.

• The sales funnel: The concept of cross selling and upselling are key here. Are customers able to get a variety of products, premium products, personalized service if they want it? Can they get it from you? Else they'll go to someone else to have their needs met.