A legit SEO consultant?

[clavus]

My partner and I launched our small business and had a web site built back in December/January. The nuts and bolts of the site work well, but our search engine ranking sucks. One of our competitors is using the basic "off the shelf" web site from Network Solutions and he even kicks our asses on google. (This is a guy who thinks AOL is "the internet.")

Our site is coded in php. It is updated almost daily.

I need to change it in some manner to increase our ranking on search engines. I'll pay for this service, if it is legit. But it looks like 99% of the SEO services are scams and BS.

So what I'm looking for is a recommendation. Have you had a good experience with a consultant/programmer/magician who does this sort of thing?

Have you had a bad experience with a service that I should avoid?

Thanks