Simple "skeletal" layout templates solve a common problem: How to create the basic layout of a site that commonly has a header or banner area, a content area, a sidebar, a navigation system or menu, and a footer area. Nevermind the color and graphics, font styles, etc. -- you just want a basic layout you can customize and then pour content into. Creating page layouts with HTML tables is easy to do, but it's best to avoid HTML tables for page layout (we'll cover the many reasons for that in a separate tutorial). The right way to lay out pages is with Cascading Style Sheets... but CSS layout can be tricky, especially when you need to guarantee compliance with a wide variety of web browsers. Using a pre-fab skeletal layout is a good way to get the basic architecture taken care of quickly and freely. It takes a bit more skill to work with skeletal templates than with polished designs, but if you don't want someone else's full design concept getting in your way, look to these sites for a starting point:

• IronMyers CSS Layouts
• CodeSucks CSS Layouts
• Smashing Magazine's CSS Layouts
• More free CSS layouts (search)

These sites take different approaches to providing free HTML+CSS skeletal designs -- some offer downloadable packages as a .zip file, while others will expect you to view source in your browser and paste the contents into your HTML editor of choice. In all cases, you'll be able to customize the colors, background images, fonts and other styles with appropriate HTML+CSS skills, then start pasting content into pages you create by saving copies of your finished template.