I have a situation where I'd like to stick to using my logo instead of the actual text for my h1 tags. if I put in my keywords in the alt tag, instead of actually written, will I suffer in SEO. Is it better to have both text and an image? Thoughts?
<div id="hdr-top-logo">
<h1>
<a href="/">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="keywords and title" />
</a>
</h1>
</div>
SEO is speculative at best.
Generally the accepted convention is to use where appropriate and you won't suffer. For example, your code I would write something like this:
<div id="hdr-top-logo">
<h1>
<a href="/" title="Blahblah.com logo">
<img src="logo.jpg" alt="Blahblah logo" />
</a>
</h1>
</div>
The benefits of actually having the text instead of the logo won't be much, if anything.
Note: alt + title should be descriptive, so don't just stuff a bunch of keywords in there, otherwise you will suffer SEO wise.