Maybe its a little late to join this conversation, but I'll do that anyway.
To start off, you should buy a domain($10) and get a hosting account. You should not go for cheap and unreliable host, as your website will be for business, and the server being offline at critical time might harm your reputation.
A very good suggestion is go for hostgator($5 per month). They are comparatively cheap and very much reliable. Alternatively, you can create a free account at x10hosting.com. They might be free, but they are much better than quite a lot of other premium host. I have been using them for 2 years, without any problem. The only thing is that you need to login into your account once a month, and they'll keep your account active as long as you do that.
Now, you can start off by installing a CMS, like Joomla or Wordpress. Webhost server provide an automatic installer, called as fantastico, which enables you to do setup within a few mouse clicks. Both the CMS provide a WYSIWYG interface so that you can create/update pages on your own.
You can also go for a professional web developer(I am one), for the setup and customization.
I can't recommend any CMS's either, because i've only used Wordpress, but my boss sais that if you have a website in wordpress, you can almost be certain that in maximum 2 years it will be hacked.
Your boss might be right in his way, because to use a CMS, you have to maintain it by keeping it update to the latest version, which get released now and then. Everytime a security bug is found, or new features are added, an update package is released. Both Joomla and Wordpress will notify you of the update available for you, and you can install it by simple clicks from the backend itself.
To sum it up, setup of any website in Joomla/Wordpress (if done by yourself), is a little hard for beginner, but once everything is running, maintenance will be as easy as working with MS Word.
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