Pretty doesn't cut it anymore. Web design used to be about making a page attractive in a web browser. Now users are browsing the web with handheld devices like Blackberrys and mobile phones. In addition, search engines and many users, including the disabled, depend on software to interpret site content for them.
The standards for good web design have changed. The biggest difference is the separation of style from content. How does a site look in a text browser with the images turned off? If your navigation menu is made up of images and images are turned off, how will one navigate your site? More and more people are looking for information on different platforms and if your information is not presented well and functionally to everyone, your site is not working for you as it should. more info on web standards and why you should have them
I also include in my services Search Engine Optimization and Registration to MSN, Yahoo! & Google search engines. This involves not only inserting a list of keywords in your page for you but researching the popularity of each keyword and its variations, customizing the keyword list to the content of each page to improve its rankings and re-submitting to the search engines every month.
I am aware of the mistakes that can cause your site to be penalized by the search engines and I optimize and test each page's meta tags for best results. If meta tag information is correctly configured to be "search engine friendly" and sites are regularly submitted, it is usually unnecessary to pay for search engine listings.
I invite you to compare web designers based on current W3C standards, and search engine savvy. And contact me anytime for a free consultation.
Thanks!
Bree Smith-Rodrigues