Hey, gone fishing. Sounds like you need to do some research online and read some of the 100,000 websites out there about web design, css, xhtml, seo, design programs, etc etc...

Asking a few questions is one thing, but trying to learn everything about web design in one thread just isn't going to happen. SEO is complicated, helping you create faster loading pages requires seeing your website and apparently you are too paranoid to give us a link.

You don't need to throw away Frontpage, I'm sick of hearing this because it's wrong and just an opinion. You can use it just fine. Just like most other wysiwyg programs (YES EVEN THE ALMIGHTY DREAMWEAVER!!!) you have to just forget about the wysiwyg part and use the coding aspects. I think FP is great for file management and simple to use and has some great search and replace features that will perform the action on a few files or the entire site. It's very usable.

If you have a friend that is a professional designer, you should make sure he's using the latest coding and design techniques before learning from him, but he could be your best teacher.