SEO is so hard to keep up with as a small business owner trying to learn enough to grow your own site - let alone for clients who want you to grow theirs too. They never seem to understand that SEO has become an industry in and of itself. Other than the little things you mentioned above Char, there’s nothing I can do for them, and if they hope to achieve anything beyond that I recommend that they contract a company specializing in SEO.

As much as I’d like to offer a service like that, I just can’t sell something I don’t know how to deliver.

I have a handful of clients that periodically ask the same sort of question. Then I sit down and reexplain SEO in terms I think they can grasp, and make my recommendations for their site. Maybe give them a couple of simple-to-understand articles to read on the topic.

Then they say they’ll think about what I’ve told them and then in about six months they ask me the very same question.

I think they want the site to perform magically, and they just think that paying for ongoing SEO tweaks is snake oil.

Ay, yai, yai. Looking for answers here, too. Maybe the answer should come from a client who has learned what it is and has seen good results from ongoing SEO efforts, rather than from a practitioner.

Always try and use some offline example.

If they are really keen and don’t want to pay for full time SEO or Google Adwords, then I suggest a business blog.

Jamie

And they seem satisfied with that response.