How to find a reputable SEO Company?

I have been recently ripped off by a company based in the UK who promissed for ££££ they would make my web site appear in the top 3 in all the major search engines they sold me 6 keywords furniture being one of them and as far as I can see nothing has happened that I could of done myself ie put the 6 keywords in my Index page and thats about it?
Can anyone suggest what I should do now?
I have some basic skills and really can't spend 2 days a week optimising my website.
PS I am taking action against the company..

A good SEO company does not make such promises. Nobody can promise you a top three ranking, searchengines could be unpredictable and moody and you doesn't always get the result you want even if you hire the best. That beeing said, if it is the site you have in your profile. Since I know nothing about what keywords and keyphrses you are targeting, I will not give you any specific advice.

You would benefit from more backlinks, cleaning up your markup and getting more copy on your site. A serious SEO consultant will be able to do the keyword research, supply you with the copy you need, and build links for you. The most experienced SEO firms charge from 150 EURO / hour, some offer a "no pay - no cure deal".
It is a unserious seo firms are damaging the perputation of the whole industry so I am very pleased to hear that you are taking action against the company in question.

It is the site in my profile.
can you explain back links?
is it links from other sites?
I have been trying to get to grips with Web Position Gold have you used this product?

indian furniture and mexican pine are my main keywords I think furniture will be too hard to crack.

Backlinks are links from other websites. Backlinks from sites with higer page rank count more, you could see the page rank with the Google toolbar.

WPG is not a very good option. You really wouldn't want to create doorwaypages since it is unethical, and could result in a penalty (lower you ranking on the SERPS). No, I have never used it.

You might want to read this:
http://forums.seochat.com/t1126/s.html
and read tough this novice SEO site:
http://www.spider-food.net/

With some background knowledge it will probably become easier to interview SEO consultants :-)

There is a directory at http://www.seoconsultants.com/ they are a bit selective (very selective - a good thing).

Many thanks I will try some optimistaion myself.
Got to position 6 in google until last week then dropped to 56
I have a pr4 which I suppose isn't too bad.
If you search for mexican pine on google a website about snakes is #1 no relevant keywords or content that I can see but thousands of links?
how do they get that many ?

For a site in english pr4 isn't all that good. With a little work you should get PR 5.

Good luck with your optimalization.

if anybody can recommend one, i am looking for a good UK SEO company too

There are good SEOs around in the UK, but there are also companies who will take your money and add a few meta tags and that is it!

That may have been okay in 1998 but it is 2004 now. For a decent SEO you need to pay decent money. Also, some of the best optimisers out there don't even have websites; their clients come from word of mouth referrals

http://www.seoconsultants.com/country/United+Kingdom/