Like so many things in life, a little preparedness goes a long way in building websites. You'll save yourself a lot of time if you plan your site before your begin.
I start out a website build with a pen and a piece of paper. With that, I sketch out the general goals of the site.
- Site name
- Main pages (home, mission, about us, directions, news, contact us, for example)
- Categories - assuming you may use a news or blog page, what kind of categories will you need
- Custom domain - while your Lycos Publish site will have an existing Tripod domain name, you'll be much better off if you attach a custom domain name to it. What name would best accompany your site?
It's a good idea to think about Search Engine Optimization at the beginning as well. If you want your site to rank well for a particular search term at that to your list and keep it in mind throughout your building project. As a freelancer, I would often ask my customers to write out their preferred keywords at the beginning of the project so I could be sure to use them through out the build. It is much easier to build them in the first time, rather than going back later.
Similarly, I strongly suggest getting all your images together at the beginning. I will create a directory or folder on my computer for the project. In that folder, I keep a digital copy of any notes about the project, a directory with raw images, any text documents, etc. Then I know I've got it all close at hand when I am building the site. The single biggest waste of time for me is going back to replace "placeholder" images with real images. Take my advice, get your images together before you start.