Not a web designer but I would advise you to make sure that whoever you get to design the website has a basic understanding of search engine optimization. Lots of web designers know how to make great looking pages, unfortunately sometimes the way they design them sometime makes it hard for Google to crawl through your site.
Particularly if they make it flash based, which obviously can make a site look real cool, but Googles web crawlers, which basically serve as the scouts for Google search, don't really know how to index those types of pages.
Wordpress actually isn't that bad of an idea. At the very least you can use it to link to your main web page.
Other random tips for SEO
- Googles top priority is content. Make sure you update semi-regularly at the very least.
- Use the
keyword planner tool to find keywords that are relatively low in competition but have a decent amount of searches.
- Don't shove keywords into articles. Ironically enough using words that relate to keywords will actually help you rank more for a particular search query. For example if you're writing about Starbuck coupons you shouldn't write:
"Starbuck coupons are in high demand. Many people want Starbuck coupons. With Starbuck coupons you can get discounts on starbucks coffee by using Starbuck coupons."
- Make sure all pictures are labeled properly. This will help you show up in Google images as well as help your page rank
- Make and maintain Facebook and Twitter pages and make sure they all link to each other. You can use these to post links to content you write for your website and get a decent amount of link backs, which is basically Googles version of street cred.
And whatever you do, DO NOT PAY FOR LINKBACKS. DO NOT PAY FOR LINKBACKS. DO NOT PAY FOR LINKBACKS. The websites these services use to linkback to your site are usually not trusted by Google and can easily get you blacklisted to the point where, at the very least you don't show up temporarily on any search query. (Research
Google Penguin and
Panda to make sure you're not using what Google calls "
black hat SEO.")