Hardcorehosing made some pretty good suggestions. It's important for some one to see the header/footer you use. Also, the design of your site plays an important role. Personally, I don't sign to a sponsor, host, service etc if it has bad design. Get rid of the mouseovers on your affiliate links. I go nuts when I see them on webmaster resources pages. Things that are not allowed in many tgps and linksites in order to "procect" surfers are used to trick webmasters. I don't have any problem to sign under your affiliate code, but if I see something like that believe me I won't. And as already mentioned, domain hosting is the top feature a free host can give to a webmaster.
------------------
Great Money Makers! Top Sponsors