To create a website, you need to choose if you want to be a writer or a publisher.
If you only want to be a writer, using public (or free) web services like blogs, wikis, knols and other website builders is enough to get a decent start. Your main concern is storing your work in some kind of order and have the ability to link them together.
To support your writing activities, starting with Google's web services is recommended.
Once you start tinkering with the look and feel of your site and thinking about making money, then you are turning into a publisher. It demands a different approach. At a minimum, you need to: (1) get yourself your own domain name, (2) get a hosting service, (3) plan to fill your online space with "human interest" write-ups regularly and (4) find ways to increase readership (i.e., traffic).
If you are a techie and find yourself doing webmaster stuff, then you are technically a publisher (i.e., your problems as webmaster are the same with that of publishers).