Question: I am currently working on my first website. I have no idea where to start on the CSS page, or if there are any standards that I should be following.

I would appreciate any links or first-hand advise.

Answer: 
You've already gotten a good set of answers regarding your question put here is a point you may find usefull.

Use Firefox with Firebug extension. If you don't have firefox I recommend you install it even if it's just for this. Firebug allows you to select element from the page and shows you th applied css. Then you can edit this css with the fire bug without any page reloads. Once you're happy with a style you can easily copy the definitions from firbug to your css editor.

At least for me firebug is an absolute necessity when working with styles.

Couple of tips for the css itself. When defining your styles use id's only when the element in question is unique. That way your styles are reusable. Use hierarchical definitions eg.
`#header .navigationElement a{color:red;}` and `#footer .navigationElement a{color:black;}` That way you can move youre html code around and the correct style is applied automaticly.
i learned what i need to know from Mc Farland's Missing Manual (Oreilly book), and by staring at a [sample rails' app's](http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596527440/index.html) stylesheet. That works pretty well, google "example / sample projects / app / repositories" for PHP, ASP.net, whatever you're using.