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It's a good start, Christian, but there is definitely room for improvement. On this particular design, there a few things that you could do to improve it.
Consistent Alignment - Let your eye scan down the left side. Your header text, the home button, the sidebar text, and the copyright text should all be aligned with each other. Also, take a look at the text in your contact us button.
Whitespace - Give each of your items some breathing room. The sidebar text seems a bit cramped because it's so close to the edges. Also, the main text is a little to close to the sidebar. There are a few other areas that could use some more space as well.
Contrast - The color scheme you've chosen could work with some improvement, but it's especially hard to read the black text on dark gray background. Try something with higher contrast, like white. In general, however, it's easier to read dark text on light background rather than the other way around.
Gradients - Many beginners to design fall in love with gradients. That's fine, but it's easy to go overboard with them. For example, your buttons appear fuzzy, which makes them hard to read. Gradients, if used, should generally be subtle and shouldn't change drastically from one color to the other.
Sizing - The size of your different elements on the page seems somewhat random. Size (and color and placement) can be used to indicate importance. What are the most important things to communicate in this design?
Font - Readability is a huge factor when someone is viewing a website. Most of us prefer to read in a smaller font than what you've chosen here, usually somewhere between an 11-14pt font. Also, your font choice can greatly affect readability. Use slightly bigger fonts for titles and headers. Favor the fonts that are the easiest to read. Avoid fancy or cursive fonts in most cases.
Purpose - Whenever you create a design, think about what you want the visitor to do. What one or two actions do you want them to perform? Now put yourself in the visitor's position. What do they want to do? The most successful designs are when the website's goals and the visitor's goals match up. Each page should have only one or two purposes that are most important.
One other thing I would do with this particular design is make the sidebar so that it touches both the header and the footer.
Hopefully this will help you. I'd encourage you to try again following some the suggestions I gave and post a second draft.
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