Front page

How do I make my front page a permanent page with a navigation tab on the top of the page named home? I have tried publishing a page, but only posts show up on my index page. I want mydomain.com main page to be a permanent page, not a post. I can create a menu called home that is mydomain.com, but any page I create becomes mydomain.com/page, instead of showing up as the home page, or if I select the page for the menu, it becomes another tab next to home, and my main page is still a post. So what I end up with is a home tab which is blank for now, since I am trying to make a page my home page, and when I publish a page I can’t figure out how to make it my home page. It becomes another tab.