Here they were, ever since those caves with drawings (make it a link). Graphic designers. They used chalk, oil and now use computers. You too use one. You control milions of background colors and textures. You have almost that many fonts at your disposal. You can redo as many times you like. Designers from other times may drool till they eyes green with envy turn tired.    
Here I started with 3 x 3 cells table object. HTML specification allows me to change color of table or each cell. I can specify how much of page does page occupy, or how many pixels it's wide.

I suggest experimenting with percentage definition. Namely positioning objects in static space is one thing but achieving good layout at differentlly resized browser is quite different achivement. Try resizing your browser.

 Yet there is problem. Yo dont even know how to start. You may open your WYSWYG editor and stare. Or you may use your favourite text editor to edit HTML code directly. I mean its tables its frames, what does it do for you? OK, you can copy some page that you like, altering details. I strongly advise that.

Else you are faced with a big problem. Its the title of this lesson. How to start?

  
NOTE:

This table has WIDTH & HEIGHT 80%

 continue  Back in school you had painting teachers. They may have changed every couple of semesters or so. One would teach you to draw from your memory other would insist that you draw or paint what you see before yourself. One more thing they would try to stamp or unstamp from your formating young mind. Usage of 3 x 3 net imposed over visual field. Does it help composition or not. It is supposed to aid your sense of composition in visual field.