g1smd - 8:35 pm on Feb 14, 2004 (gmt 0)

I know a number of people who could build you a nice looking site, but as they have ZERO understanding of search engines the site would never do very well.

In the long term you might be better off doing it all yourself. Valid code, with good use of title tags, meta description, and headings properly used, are a good start. Build more incoming links from diverse (ownership and location) but on-topic sites, and see what happens.