As you can see there are TONS of different ways to build with ExpressionEngine. I typically setup {embed}s like others said. I shy away from using snippets but I have built sites with snippets for my doc_head, doc_end and the like. You're better off creating a template for each of your pages as it gives you a LOT more flexibility down the road if something changes or you want to do more with a particular page. True it's not a big deal to pull that page out of that particular template, but I try to build for flexibility. IF you build each project with that in mind you'll be in great shape.