Like Ian said, I would recommend you make a blog promoting a bunch of affiliate products, this will keep people coming back to your blog, and give you a better chance of more sales.
The thing is with a website, I think its more difficult to keep updated and organised. A blog will do that for instantly with the archive pages.
I would say "yes". Blogs are a great way to start personally branding yourself. This will help separate you from all the others who are trying to promte that affiliate product. Good Luck.
I forgot to mention that logs are another great way to generate targeted traffic to your sites. There are also a lot of good, free blog tools out there, along with some good free video tutorials if you look around a little. Even the beginner can get started with a very small learning curve. Good Luck. Cheers.