I was wondering... If I have a layout image, like the peice of a menu or something and I position it using divs. Should I place the actual image withing the HTML, within the div tags, like so <img src"=blahblah.jpg"> or should I place it in the CSS, like so: background-image: url('blahblah.jpg');? They both appear to have the same visual effect, and I am not planning on putting any additional HTML within these <divs> (other then the image itself). Does it matter whichever way?
Basically your aim is to try and keep everything presentational inside the CSS, so that your HTML is pure content. If the image is part of the content, and worth a SE Spider seeing e.g an image related to an article keep it inside the HTML, if it's just something like a background image or a piece of a menu then shove it inside the CSS.
Great advice. I would just like to add that as you start using external stylesheets more and more, watch out for "divitis" (the overusing of the DIV tag)...
Ditto, that is the key to designing with HTML/CSS. CSS stylesheets give you a central point to change the site's presentation, instead of having to change each HTML page individually, which can become a nightmare.
If you will use background images properly you will be able to make fast loading site as backgroudn will stretch automatically even if the image is small in size.