To reach your goals you will need 3 things: Web Development, Web Design and SEO. Keeping these job-functions separated in your mind will make for a very successful online endeavor.
Web Development is the building of a web site. It deals with computer coding, things like creating pages and linking them together. Form submissions are a good example – they are the workings of the computer on which the website lives.
Web Design is specifically about the beauty and usability. The things that humans need in a website to understand your business and contact you.
Search Engine Optimization is about arranging things for search engines to understand your business so it can be found by humans.
You can see that these are very different skill-sets that are often wrongly lumped together. The web designer talks to people, the other two to computers. Knowing that these three job-functions are different will save you from making the biggest, most common mistakes.
Good web design is almost priceless. Its worth every penny. Spend your time and budget on the design/er. And keep them focused on designing for people.
Web Development and SEO are similar in that they must consider the mechanics – how the website function must serve the business. re. an eCommerce website is very different from a local business website.
Web Developers and Designers go together, usually in pairs. The designer designs and the developer turns the design into computer code.
I caution against using a Web Design firm to do SEO. 99% of these firms start as web designers (artists). As the firm grows, the imperative to increase billable services naturally looks for the easiest thing to sell the client. SEO! Anyone can do SEO!
Its a trap. Its better to find your SEO first, then have the Web Developer follow the blueprint. The SEO should establish the framework on which the mechanics are built. This way the website will 1) function for the business and it will 2) be a thing of beauty to search engines and 3) it will be attractive to people as well. The perfect web site.