Hi Bob,
For a site to work, you need a domain name (yoursite.com or ???), and it must be "hosted" somewhere, which means the name must point to a computer somewhere on the internet where the files reside. This is what a hosting provider does.
The domain name is rented on an annual subscription, which can be renewed for multi-year periods. They also charge a fee for hosting the site, and there may be different hosting plans ($$$) based on the amount of traffic you expect.
There are many site authoring resources available. Most hosting providers have packages available with pre-configured sites and authoring tools which allow you to customize the site as desired. This may be the best/simplest/fastest way to accomplish what you want, since much of the basic work is already done for you.
To use this you simply get your site name from any of the domain name providers that also provide hosting services (
www.networksolutions.com or
www.register.com or whoever), then select one of their standard site configurations based on its appearance. They sell the authoring tools, but they're inexpensive.
There are many authoring tools available for free or at very low prices. Look over the offerings at Tucows (
http://www.tucows.com ) or SourceForge (
http://www.sourceforge.net ). I would never recommend FrontPage to anyone, unless you plan to start a website authoring business.
Most programs (128,000+ of them) on SourceForge are free. Some programs on Tucows are shareware, which means they charge a fee (typically $10 to $30) to use the program after a free evaluation period (usually 30 days). Others are free, and some are full-priced commercial products. Specifics for each program are presented in the License section of the description. The notation GPL (GNU Public License) on any software package from any site means that it's free.
I have four websites, the first of which went online eight years ago. All were designed and written by hand. But I have a lot of experience in computer programming and related fields, and the sites are pretty simple. I would not recommend this approach for a novice.
Leigh