General Need some help please

Hi im new to the whole website and server thing i currently have my own website but dont know the first thing about replacing the layout and web design i have at present i downloaded one of your templates and would like some help if possible to be able to put this on my website and give it a new and more professional look and feel to it.

I changed the template txt content etc put some pics and other stuff on the templates and saved the files as index.html and some pics have been replaced with the ones i made using the same names etc as they were before but the problem im having is i uploaded the files using my servers java ftp client the files are on the server but when i tried to redirect the folder with the template to appear on my website i got a blank page with cannot find server or server does not exist something or other does anyone know what im doing wrong as i really dont have a clue and im sick of using the live pages as they just look tacky

Thanks

Dolanm56