Some tips

For a site with little content, use a fix width.

Always put the whole site in a table. Make this table transparent -- zero border, spacing, etc. So in the future u could always adjust your site to anything you like.

Use CSS, consistency rules.

Use one look: all easy color or all contrast colors, thick or thin borders. No mix.

The easiest way to start out is to copy other site. As soon as you got something, ideas will come faster than you can handle. Very very very hard to start from a blank page.

Don't reinvent the wheel. Find scripts you need to mod them to your like.

Let's be realistic. Web sites copy from other websites almost all the time, but they change in the end. And any professional site know what "copy" means, and they do it professionally. You could never get them.

Also, how many truly original sites out there? a dozen out of millions, I bet.