My first website, I designed with a very simple amateurish layout.  I was selling books, but I wasn't using a shopping cart.  To put the site together, I used Netscape Composer. (Yes, I know, this is ancient software!)  I used it both on the Macintosh and PC, so I was able to see from both platforms how my completed website looked.

After a year or two, someone introduced me to Dreamweaver.  It's a little more complicated, but it has more features than Netscape Composer.  Tags and anchors are easier to place, and it had a nice interface from design to code.  I was able to put together a professional looking site using frames, as well as a CGI script for communication with my customers.

I used both Netscape Composer and Dreamweaver for several years, still on the PC and Mac.  It was very revealing to see both programs' creations.  Sometimes, I would find that Netscape Composer would leave little pieces of HTML that I hadn't created in the head or body areas of my code.  I got tired of editing it out, so I dumped Netscape Composer all together and just used Dreamweaver.

I never was comfortable creating web pages using a lot of HTML, so the more feature rich the program was, the better.  Then I discovered MS FrontPage (now Web Expressions).  FrontPage does everything all the other programs did, plus more.  Some people don't like it just because it's Microsoft, but I think that's silly.  If it works, and works well, why not use it?  I've never had any trouble with it, and editing pages is a breeze.  I can do it right from the web, or on my computer.  This site was built with FrontPage, and since it's easy to use, it didn't take that long to create with the right template.

There are many more HTML editors out on the market for website creation.  Two of the three that I have mentioned here happen to be the most popular (the version of Netscape Composer that I used is no longer available).  Do your own research and see which features interest you.  Your ability to understand HTML, Java, CSS, and other web-related languages is key to your experience with each product.  Look for a WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) HTML editor; most are nowadays.