Is it just me or are SEOs getting a little big for their britches? Specifically, why do so many of them tell business owners that they must optimize their website for hundreds of keywords?

Uh, what?

Last time I checked, the majority of businesses in North America were small ones. You know, the kind with itty-bitty "brochure" sites that have overly complicated contact forms, say "Welcome to Our Website" on the homepage, and contain barely enough content to fill a real brochure of the paper variety.

Now, when the owner of one of these little charmers approaches me for Internet marketing help, I'm not going to tell him that we must optimize his site for hundreds of keywords. Nor am I going to tell him that we need to create a 100 more pages of content to add to their existing 10 to support such a campaign.

This is not to say that small websites can't achieve search visibility on the web. But the path they take to get there is going to be a little different than that of their big budget counterparts. Results will happen by taking small, purposeful steps. Such as the following:

If you commit at least a modest budget to the Internet marketing game, we can provide value for that budget. But please, give us a budget! Even if all you can afford is to have your title tags rewritten or headlines edited, this alone may bring in enough returns to invest in further improvements to your web presence. Or buy a new computer for your office. Or take a day off.

We can't change the world for a few hundred bucks. And that's okay. If all you actually have is a few hundred bucks right now, we can evaluate your website (or at the very least, a few pages of it) from the perspective of marketers, customers and even search engines. And we will tell you--in plain English--the obstacles, errors and online potential we observed. What you do with that information is up to you, but now you can at least say you know enough to be dangerous. Just know that we charge a lot to fix other people's mistakes.

What we won't tell you is that you need to re-mortgage your house to build a working web presence. Unless your website really does have hundreds of pages that can be optimized for thousands of keywords (do SEOs actually count them?).

Because again, it all depends on your budget and how that budget That's really the size of it. I love nothing more than to help the entrepreneur discover the power of online marketing. Online marketing with a conscience. A purpose. And even a limited budget.