What to do first of all?

Making a new site, not a MFA site, but sure I want to place ads on it

[I Will Make It]

I've been doing a lot of research on this topic the last couple of weeks, and are now ready start my new project.
The only thing is, where should I start?
I know I have to write +/- 500 articles (small ones) and I have to design the page myself.
I want to design it myself, so that I can place the ads exactly where I want, - thinking of googles hotmap.

I know I have to work with this site for about 6 months, maybe a year, before I have written all the articles.

So to you guys that develop sites quite often..
Should I concentrate on the articles, or should I make the page first, and then place my ads in there from the beginning - and add the articles one by one?

[CaWebSites]

Make the home page, and a few other pages. You can start with just a couple of articles and add others on a regular basis. This is one key to getting good placement on Google (fresh content.) Then work on getting inbound links through advertising your site posting in blogs, search engines etc.

[david_uk]

I don't know if you have signed up with adsense or not yet. I'd be inclined to write a few pages to get the site started, and experiment with the layout. Once you are happy with the first few pages, sign up for adsense and then keep adding to the site regularly.

[OptiRex]

You can start with one single page however do make sure it is of a high quality and very relevant to what you are writing about, then you can easily add a page a week etc without any problems and not have to sit back for 6-12 months wondering whether you are writing applicable content or not.

The common misconception is of believing that "everyone" wants to read what you have written. Some of my most successful pages have been information pages which I put there as "basic fillers" and not as the "real meat".

Just get started, you'll soon find out.

I'm not too sure why you are having such a difficulty with designing the page layout, that in itself is the easiest bit.