Macintosh is the forgotten stepchild of the Internet marketing industry.

You’ve undoubtedly faced frustration when reading a sales page for a promising piece of software for Internet marketers, only to discover that it runs only on the Windows operating system.

Or you’ve read an e-book in which all the screenshots showed were of Windows based software, or watched a video in which everything was done on a PC.

Maybe you’ve read an e-book which recommended "essential" software that was for Windows computers only.

Worse, you may have paid good money for a marketing course, only to discover after buying it that the entire system was invalid unless you shelled out for additional software that was for PC only!

I once paid good money for a highly recommended course whose sales letter claimed that it explained the entire process of how to make money online. When I received the course, I discovered it was pushing an "upsell" of expensive and complex software that ran only on the PC. What’s worse, the author implied that unless one bought the software, all the other advice in the course would be useless! (The software was a spammy e-mail program.) This made me wonder why, if the software was so essential, the marketer didn’t simply sell the software and throw in the manual as a bonus.

This course is still sold today, and even though it offers hefty commissions for affiliate resellers, I refuse to recommend it on my website or in this e-book.

Fact is, even though there are 25 million Mac users worldwide and growing, and these users include scientists, researchers, architects, lawyers, draftsman and, yes, business people, including Internet marketers, the Macintosh has been all but ignored in the Internet marketing arena.

This is because the PC is a 600 pound gorilla in the computing industry. Web marketers talk about, promote and demonstrate PC software because this is all most of them know about.

So what to do? Does this mean that Mac users are left out in the cold? Should you ditch the Mac you know and love if you want to make money in the Internet marketing arena?

Absolutely not! The good news is that the most effective Internet marketing methods work equally well on the Mac and the PC! What do these methods involve? Article marketing, writing, blogging, social networking and social bookmarking, creating websites, building mailing lists and so on. If you’ll notice, all of these things can be done just as easily on the Mac as on a PC!

In fact, some of the top Internet marketers use a Mac as their primary or secondary computer—names such as Anthony Blake, Michael Campbell, Chris Carpenter, Joel Comm, Frank Kern, Ken Evoy, Mike Filsaime, Howie Jacobson, Perry Marshall, Don Morris, Ken McCarthy, Lee McIntyre, Anik Singal, Brian Terry and Jeff Walker (and this is a very incomplete list! No offense intended to anyone I have left off!)

It’s true that those who are pushing expensive and possibly dubious software that happens to run on a PC only will claim that it is essential, but this is not true. The Web has become a great leveler in the Internet marketing arena and most of the web-based services run just as well on a Mac as on a PC.

In fact, I think Mac users are at an advantage in some respects, as they are filtered from some of the more dubious software that runs on PCs, so that they can focus and concentrate on the marketing methods that really work!

With that in mind, there are a few software and hardware tools that you will need to become an effective Internet marketer. All of them run on a Mac. In many cases, the Mac software is better than anything that is available for the PC.

Fortunately, the Mac has all the essential software and hardware tools you will need to become an effective Internet marketer. Some of the software is totally free and qcuivalent to software that would otherwise cost hundreds of dollars. In many cases, these free alternatives, while lacking some of the bells and whistles of the paid products, are professional-grade tools that are perfectly well-suited to anyone starting out.

You really won’t need anything else.