CINNIMANI's video on how to get started on building a Neocities was EXTREMELY helpful for me. shit you not, i started by trying to use templates on other websites and building around those, and it was an endless, never-growing struggle. i watched this one video once, and all of a sudden everything made perfect sense for me and i was able to grow every single day i worked on this website.
please dont take that the wrong btw, if you want to use a template then do so! as long as it is with permission from the creator to do so (i highly encourage not to rip another person's site for obvious reasons, unless you're trying to LEARN something about the specific site)