The technical web-related stuff can be broken down into several areas:

. Hosting
. Domain registry
. HTML / Page Layout
. Graphic design
. Server side programming

Hosting has a fair amount to do with server side programming, (they need to support the tools you want to use. Typically Perl and PHP, but watch out with PHP, there are a zillion different configurations)

Registry should be kept WELL APART from your hosting provider, this is important. If you get a bum host and they also happen to be your registry, they can play all sorts of games with your domain name, should you decide to switch to another host.

If you want to play it safe, make sure the host has everything you need, look for one that provides complete shell access including a compiler. (even if you never use the shell, you may some day find that you or an employee/contractor needs it)

Shell access generally means "BSD Jail" or "VPS", these can be kind of expensive. Most linux based providers I’ve seen are "VPS" but I believe BSD Jail should be more economical.

Demand a host with shell access, don’t use the commodity based hosting providers if you can help it. They pretty much all suck. (but commodity based el-cheap-o registries are OK, they generally try to "up-sell" you on hosting.. don’t buy into it keep domain registry separate)

As far as HTML knowledge, you can either just learn it (it’s pretty easy, really and there are a lot of resources.) or use tools to help you with it.

Did I mention, keep your registry separate?