Watch out!

Since we work primarily with small business and organizations, one of clients' key concerns is search engine optimization. Sites that show up in Google are at a distinct advantage compared to those who don't.

At low price points, I've seen design companies comp entire sites, then just slice them up into block images and piece them together with minimal HTML, creating sites with little system text that are basically collections of .gifs.

At the higher end, I've known clients who worked with designers who upsold them or encourages them to go with sites build entirely in Flash, likely to get more billable hours or stay within a technology that they felt comfortable with. Clients generally love the fancy hover states and the exciting impressions that motion graphics can provide, and are led to believe that the costs are in line with what is to be expected

Unfortunately, neither type of takes into consideration best practices around searchability. Uninformed clients can easily end up paying way more than they should for what they receive.

A preliminary guideline, when analyzing the searchability of a firm's work, is to visit their live sites and to try and select body text to see if you can copy & paste it. If embedded in an image or in flash, it cannot be highlighted and often cannot be read by search engines.

For some more high-level information about how to optimize for search, check out my favorite quick-start guide: http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php