What tools do I need to get started
Once you’ve got your domain name registered and have selected a web hosting provider, its time to get going.
First you will want an HTML editor. You can actually create HTML pages in a basic text editor but that is for advanced users. You’ll have much better luck using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. One of the most popular is Dreamweaver from Adobe. This is a sophisticated tool but very powerful. It will take some learning curve to get going but if you are serious about building your own site this is probably a tool worth investigating. You can also create a web page with a Word processor such as Microsoft Word. This is a way to get started quickly but not ideal as the HTML it produces will be difficult to maintain. Microsoft used to offer a product called FrontPage which was quite easy to use but they have discontinued it and launched a new product called ExpressionWeb that might be worth a look although I’ve not used it. Another worth looking at is CoffeeCup which is a little less expensive but quite powerful.
FTP client - you will likely want an FTP client such as CuteFTP, CaptainFTP or Traffic for the Mac. This will make it much easier to move the files you create to your web server. Some of the more advanced web development tools and html editors have this built in but if you are not using one of those an FTP client will make it much easier to move files. Most web hosting providers let you upload web pages through their own web interface but this gets cumbersome if you have a lot of pages to manage but is an easy way to get started.
That’s all you really need to get going for a basic web site. As you get more advanced and want to offer your users a more interactive experience there are many roads to travel but getting your own site up and running should not require much in the way of sophisticated software and in fact you can most likely get going with what you have today on your PC.