As a general rule, design your site with three templates (or page designs):

• Homepage. The homepage should look different from the other pages. Even totally different.
• Landing page. These are "section" pages, which serve as directories to that section. In this website, each of the links in the blue navigation bar leads to a landing page. Often, a Google search will bring someone to a landing page.
• Interior page. These pages are workhorse pages, designed to hold information. If a person wants to know the church's history, he might start at the home page, go to the "About Us" landing page, and from there click on the "History" link.

Most sites, from what I've observed, are designed with just two templates: the homepage, and interior pages. That works fine. You can even design a website using a single template. For a very small site, that may be the way to go.

The UB.org website
The UB.org website, our official denominational website, uses just two page designs--one for the homepage, another for all other pages. The landing pages are just a version of the general interior page.

Healthy Ministry Resources website
This website uses the following:

• A homepage template, in which the graphic is 300 pixels tall.
• A landing page template, in which the graphic is 200 pixels tall.
• An interior page, which doesn't use a banner graphic or the tagline (like this page).

In some cases, the landing page template is used for content which could just as easily go on interior pages.