What do YOU look for when reviewing technical website criteria?

[JusinDuff]

Wanted to get everyone's thoughts on this. One of my clients was asking me what they thought of a certain website design company. They wanted to use this company because their designs were very beautiful but wanted to be sure that contracting them would be the right decision.

After I made my formal review and recommendation I thought this might be a great topic of discussion for the amazing SEOMOZ community.

So, what factors do you look at when determining which design firms are worth their weight?

[David_ODonnell]

Very basically, the designs have to look great (modern look, clean code, responsive design is a bonus) and have a certain level of SEO-friendliness on launch.

I think it's very important to know which CMS they use, whether it be a 3rd party product or a custom solution, to determine how SEO capable and customizable it is.