Posted By:
Paul SHi Joe, As someone who did this for quite some time (no more), here's my 3 cents:
My best advice is to take the extra time to decide up front about what you have in mind down the line, because one of the biggest headaches will be to later start changing it over into something it wasn't designed/intended to be in the first place; for instance, swell looking graphics and design easily built with html, that you later want to "intergrate" a db,shopping cart, php, et al. while retaining the original look and feel. I've seen lots of time and money wasted on this approach.
If you must jump in, then like an above poster says, use a template, or custom design through whomever you choose to help you. Go into it thinking that you'll have to rebuild a second site later and can at least import some of the style and design at that point. Good luck!