If you are not selling your own products, but instead are focusing on affiliate marketing, you will still need some knowledge of HTML coding or experience with software packages like Frontpage or Dreamweaver. Both of these packages can be downloaded off the Internet for free trials to see if you feel confident using the product.

You can download free templates today from many sites that are easily installed on web servers, if you understand how to connect to a web host using FTP (File Transfer Protocol). This will provide you with a free design layout to use for your Internet presence, which can cut significant time off your development stage. You will need to upload these templates to your server and test them out and later tweak them by changing the HTML the way you want it.

If you don't have any idea how to connect to your main server, you will not be able to upload web pages to your web site. You must have this capability if you are programming your own web pages. Both the newer versions of Dreamweaver and Frontpage have FTP capabilities. Reading the tutorials that come with these packages can help you learn how to use the feature.

If you are using Frontpage, a Microsoft product, you can search their online knowledgebase for articles on how to do certain things in Frontpage or to find out whether you've hit a bug within the product. The knowledgebase for all Microsoft products is located at http://support.microsoft.com/search/. If you are using Dreamweaver, they have a developer's forum for people who are learning their products at: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/ . There is a great little HTML coding Free-ware that will allow you to build web pages like you would in a simple word processor. Go to:

http://nvudev.com/index.php to check it out.

If you don't know how to upload pages to your website, you will need to look up FTP and understand how it works. What you will want to do is get a training manual for your software or checkout free trial FTP programs like WS_FTP (http://www.wsftp.com/) or Coffeecup (http://www.coffeecup.com/).

These programs are dedicated to FTP and can help you get started learning FTP, however, they are not necessary as standalone products if you have Dreamweaver or Frontpage. If you decide to use a different HTML editor than either Dreamweaver or Frontpage, you may need to load a separate FTP program to get this capability.

Whether you are selling your own or someone else's goods, you want to be able to market your site to attract visitors and turn those visitors into paying customers. Unlike a brick-and-mortar store, your typical advertising campaigns relying on word-of-mouth, good customer service, and walk-ins won't work.

If you have no visitors, you have not word-of-mouth and then it definitely won't matter how good your customer service is. The primary goal of any online business is to attract and retain Internet traffic and convert visitors to paying customers. This takes a whole new set of skills that can combine technology with business savvy.