I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but there's really no substitute for learning HTML yourself and eliminating the need for any fancy software. I thoroughly recommend "Integrated HTML and CSS" by Virginia DeBolt if you want to go down that route.

I made my first website with Micro$oft Frontpage (don't go there) graduated through various freeware HTML editors until I knew enough to just code the pages myself using Wordpad / Notepad (in Windows) and GEdit (in Linux). Of course there's a steep learning curve, but in my opinion it's far better to invest time learning what's going on underneath than to invest time -and money- in learning some expensive software without understanding how webpages actually work.

Stuff like credit card ordering, paid-for downloads and mailing list signup forms I use third-party systems (Paypal, CD Baby's digital distribution and Fanbridge), rather than try to re-create their functionality myself.