Perhaps the most important questions you can ask a potential website design service/SEO firm is “How many people work for you?” and “What are their responsibilities and backgrounds?”

A web design/SEO firm that is capable of providing professional web designs and search engine optimization will have multiple people working on your site. Experienced SEO copy writers and researchers will be responsible for developing the text or content of your site, while skilled graphic designers and programmers will put together the visual interface.

A web design/SEO firm that is accustomed to building websites optimized for search engines will have a specific process for incorporating SEO into the project design. With each project, there is coordinated effort between the project manager and the SEO keyword research staff, the SEO copy writers, the graphic designers and programmer.

The first step will be SEO keyword research, to determine which set of keywords are most important for targeting the best quality and quantity prospects to your site. Additionally, SEO keyword research will help in identifying the type of content your site should feature in order to gain the attention of search engines, like Google, as well as your potential customers. The takeaway from this process will be a site map and navigation plan for your web site.

Once this step is complete, the web design/SEO firm will use the navigation information to develop a home page design.

After the client approves the design concept, the project is turned back over to the SEO copy writers, who begin the process of developing content for the site. While working on this content, the SEO copy writers also are likely talking with the graphic designer to make recommendations on photos, images and other graphics that would be appealing and appropriate for certain pages. Once the content has been developed, the pages are built.

There’s no need to feel left out of the process; your web design/SEO firm will be in touch every step of the way to gather information, get your input on various aspects of the site and specific approvals along the way.

To find the right web design firm, one that can build a site to appeal to your customers and prospects as well as perform on search engines, ask for references and review their results. Any credible web design firm should have referable clients and meaningful search engine results to prove their capabilities.

Identifying a qualified web design firm that will incorporate SEO as part of your site redesign not only will result in success on the search engines, but save you the time and money of approaching SEO as a separate process.