I was asked to review getfoundnow.com (aka Social Network Marketing), and that was my favorite site review I have ever done. I guess because they work on SEO. getfoundnow.com is an Internet Presence Management company, a new term for me and probably for you. In their internet marketing blog, they define internet presence management as the process of hosting a site, then structuring it, then adding professional content and finally building a buzz and back links.
The company chose the best host, rackspace. I just communicated with them to get a quote for a small dedicated server, they told me that the cheapest available dedicated server costs 440$ per month. I paid 22.4 for dreamhost per YEAR using dreamhost promo code, and guess what? I found it expensive :). Certainly using reliable host is a plus, but I think the most important thing in terms of hosting is having unique IP. Having unique IP address makes you look professional. Furthermore, site availability is an important issue, if site availability is 50%, search engines may not be willing to drive traffic to 404s.
Then, the company structure your site. Thats incredibly important, your site should maintain low click depth for your important pages. Your site may have sub domains in case it is huge (like a local search site) . These decisios are made for you by getfoundnow.com engineers.
Then, content is king. Yes, thats true. It helps you to gain rank for a lot of long tail keywords. Finally, building a buzz, and back links from other web sites to your web site which act as votes when search engine come to score your page. Here is a useful post about internet presence management.