Hosting Your Website
The cheapest method would usually be the free webspace that comes with an internet connection package. But this space is often slow, may well have size limitations and won't look as professional to your visitors.
The cost of hosting, like the cost of all physical data storage, has fallen in recent years. Things you should consider are the uptime of a web host - how frequently does their webspace go down and how quickly do they react when it does.
Also the type of machine that your files are kept on is important. For basic words and picture sites, almost any web space host will be fine as your pages will just be static HTML. But where dynamic technologies are required, for instance to interact with a database or allow on page forms to collect user information, then you will probably need to use server side technologies.
Windows 2000/2003 servers are most often used for pages that use classic ASP (Active Server Pages) or ASP.NET.
Linux Servers are most often used for pages that use PHP server side programming.
There are several things you should consider when looking at hosts. What are their statistics on uptime - how often do their servers fail, and how quickly do they fix the problems? What is their support like and how quickly will they deal with problems. If you are expecting plenty of visitors to your website, make sure your web hosting package has sufficient bandwidth.
Reseller Accounts
If you plan on making quite a few websites, reseller accounts can work out great value. By paying more each month, you can get the option to add a large block or even unlimited number of domains. This works out a lot cheaper than purchasing single domain packages for the same number of websites.