high cost of a web site

Recently I have put a web page on the Internet via my ISP www.westnet.com.au/aland at no extra cost to me,

Now I am looking at registering my own domain name as I am told that search engines wont register www.westnet.com.au/aland ,also it will make it easier for people to remember for future bookings ,

But now my ISP says I will need my own web space and it will cost around $550 to get all this up and running using the same web page as before ?,

Can anybody help me what other alternatives apart from free sites with all those pop-ups and ads

I just recently heard about redirection and forwarding but not sure if this has any drawbacks ,

my ISP says they are not keen on redirecting .