Cleric is one of the more versatile and well-rounded classes, and certainly one of the more powerful. However, it's by no means the only option. The Druid is a superb counter-part to the Cleric which fulfills a very similar role. The Bard is another extremely versatile class, and while it lacks in the sheer spellcasting power of the Cleric it makes up for with an expanded list of non-combat skills and some nice support abilities. I'm personally a huge fan of Fighter/Rogue multi-class. While he doesn't have any spellcasting ability of his own, he can use scrolls and wands to be a pseudo-spellcaster and he's great both inside and out of combat.

As for builds, the most important thing is attribute placement:

If you want to do melee combat, start with 16+ strength (don't try dexterity-based melee combat on your first character, it's a bit harder to pull off right)
If you want to do archery, start with 16+ dexterity
If your chosen class has spells, start with 16+ in the appropriate spellcasting attribute
Distribute your remaining points, typically with a focus on constitution

So what might be a good stats placement for a Cleric?

16 strength to be good in melee
16 wisdom to be good at spellcasting
14 constitution to be tough in battle
12 dexterity for a small boost to your armor class
10 intelligence for no penalty
8 charisma (because everything else is more important)

For race, go with human; you basically get a free +2 bonus to intelligence when determining how many skill points you get, which frees up build points for other attributes (if you're not human, you'll need to drop your dexterity down to 10 and raise your intelligence to 12; not fun in combat, since that will cause your armor class to drop)

For background, either pick Devout or no background; it's really a toss-up as to whether the penalties are worth the benefits (Devout gets some useful bonuses in combat, but takes penalties to its conversation skills), and no other background really appeals to a Cleric.

For skills, max out concentration, diplomacy, and lore. Cleric is tight on skills, but if you want more you can raise your intelligence a little.

For domains, good choices include: Time (access to the haste spell, arguably the best spell in the game), Chaos (heavy resistance to mind-affecting spells), Animal (animal companion is nice), Travel (fast movement speed, which is deceptively useful), Luck (gives you the powerful "luck of heroes" feat as a bonus feat; this is the only realistic way to get both luck of heroes and spellcasting prodigy on your Cleric), Fire or War (early access to damage-dealing spells), Water (gives a chance to completely avoid damage from some damage-dealing spells), and Earth (bonus hit points, access to some good defensive spells). Take any combination above that interest you; they're all good picks and you'll do just fine picking randomly from that short list.

For feats, there are two stand-out choices: luck of heroes improves all your defenses by +1, which is just plain good, and spellcasting prodigy lets you treat your wisdom as being 2 points higher which is just plain awesome. You can't pick both (they're heritage feats and are mutually exclusive, unless you took the luck domain) but either is a fine choice. For other feats, I'd suggest extend spell. It's actually useless at the 1st level, but it will become useful later on and since it doesn't have prerequisites you may as well pick it up now.

You might consider multi-classing with Fighter (only for a single level) for weapon proficiency, but otherwise keep it simple and stay single-class Cleric for your entire career. Every time you have the opportunity to increase one of your attributes, choose wisdom.

Hope that helps!