The official documentation is great,
httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/
You might want to skip the "compiling and installing" section if you have already installed apache through your distribution's repository.
As for the website, it depends on what you need. There are numerous web technologies ranging from interfaces to programming languages to end-to-end encryption, however they're only useful to setup if you will use them. If you only want to serve static HTML pages, you're ready to go as soon as you edit your httpd.conf and run the apache daemon.
I know all those features of apache seem overwhelming for someone just starting (by the way take a look at
Lighttpd
as well, you might like it better). However the default httpd.conf should be well commented on what each directive does, so try starting from there and refer to the official documentation for whatever you do not understand.
Once you edit the configuration file, apache can be executed like any other service, through your distribution control script (i.e. /etc/init.d/apache).
Cheers
