IMO, start with pencil and paper. Sketch out your page or the common areas your website will have before you dig in and start coding. I'm sure other designers/developers on here will echo the novice mistake of spending a few hours writing code only to realize that it's not what you want or like and possibly have to start over. Erasing areas on paper is much. much easier than deleting the code you've spent hours writing.

Not to mention you should then have a good idea of what divs or classes you will need to achieve the look and feel your after.

Good Luck,
Scott

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Web Design and Development