Most affiliate programs require that you have an active and live website prior to applying for their program. A website is an essential tool for every affiliate to attract and retain traffic to send to their affiliate program partners. It would be hard for an affiliate to build up considerable resources to monetize without a website. You do not need to know HTML to have a website, but it is preferred. If you do not know HTML you can hire a website designer to create and help maintain your website or utilize one of many software programs and web based services that make it possible to create a website without having to know any HTML code.