Best way to design website with multiple pages

Question

In dreamweaver what are your suggestions to create a full website with multiple pages where each page has a different but similar setup. I'd have a similar theme but I don't want each page to be exactly the same as the home page? I've tried a template but that was a nightmare since some of my pages were different from the original page and i had to mess with it to fix it.I've also made the home page, saved the html file in my website root folder then changed that page into the second page and saved it as another html file. I have thought about using pre-made templates and designs but I kind of want to design from my own creative viewpoint.
your ideas are appreciated, advice welcome.

Answer 1

Templates do make your life much easier.  I use the following scheme....
First, I mentally separate the page layout into three sections:
1.  Stuff that will not change for the life of the site (i.e., the basic
structural elements)
2.  Stuff that *could* change from time to time (e.g., navigation elements,
burst advertisements, section-specific navigation, etc.)
3.  Stuff that *will* change from one page to the next
Then I create a template containing all class1 elements.  Next I create
server-side include files containing all class 2 elements and place them on
the template as needed.  Note - some of the class 2 elements may be
"section-specific elements", and their placement on the template will be
subject to the next item.  Finally, I insert editable regions to cover the
class 3 items, INCLUDING the section-specific navigation.
This allows me to just cookie-cut the rest of the site.  I estimate that
even for fairly large sites, about 80% of my work goes into planning and
creating this template file.
To handle pages that have substantially different layouts I just change the CSS on those pages, and leave the Template alone.