not that a programmer needs to of course. if your topic of choice is programming then it would vary a lot more, but lets say it isn't. web design would probably be a lot more important to affiliate marketers than programming, wouldn't you agree.? Since Wordpress is probably the most popular blogging platform, my guess would be PHP. I've delved in it a little bit but haven't had the patience to keep on learning it.
I'd say HTML and PHP as the main things an affiliate marketer should learn. Why? Because most websites that affiliate marketers will be using are most likely running on PHP scripts or platforms, and occasionally you need some HTML knowledge to implement various plug-ins and codes to the website. One could argue that an affiliate marketer doesn't need any knowledge in it because we could just hire a guy to do it for us, but I like having control of my own things as long as I can.
You're asking part of a question. Will the affiliate marketer be writing websites or parts of sites? If not, learning a computer language would be a waste of time. If yes, he has to learn programming, then all the languages used on the sites he'll be working on, which probably includes HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP. Web design isn't languages, it's art. Languages is web development. And you can't work on websites (and do anything worth having) by learning just part of the job. That would be like learning driving by learning steering, but not learning braking. Wordpress is kind of HTML with lines of PHP pasted in. It's not something for a beginner to start modifying.
An affiliate marketer should also be looking at the cost/benefit stuff - is it better to hire someone to do something and keep doing the affiliate stuff? The answer will normally be yes. And using WordPress doesn't require any programming at all - if you can't get by with the plugins that are available then hire someone
English is probably the best language to learn That way you can clearly communicate with the business world and realize that things like affiliate marketing isn't taken seriously by ANYONE who understands business; or money; or real marketing... Since to be brutally frank at it's heart it's little more than another of the marketing scams it's shocking anyone is dumb enough to fall for -- ranking right up there in my book alongside Ponzi schemes, pyramid scams, etc, etc... It's just another of the 'make money fast online' bull that has about as much fact and profit to it as your late night 3AM real estate scam infomercials... with barely any more legitimacy than Mary Kay or Amway. Of course that said SCAMS remind me SO MUCH of all the things that led to the first dotcom bust doesn't help -- but like anything else those who fail to learn or pay attention to history... Pfft... affiliate marketing -- why don't you just go sell knives door to door for Vector or something. :/ Seriously, how is that idiocy not illegal exactly?!?