Susan the Meticulous and I are back fresh from speaking at the monthly round table luncheon for Business + Balance, a local group of self-employed moms. I wasn’t sure what to expect since nobody has ever said, “Hey, Sara! Come address our group, you subject authority, you.”

I was along for the ride to talk about blogging, but it turned out to be a nice team effort with active questioning throughout. Those are some whip smart moms. Women are funny, so many of them being helpful and cooperative by nature. Both Susan and I have to stop ourselves from just jumping into these women’s sites and doing on-the-spot consulting.

It’s interesting to approach the whole tangle of search marketing solutions from the perspective of just sharing information, rather than pitching a prospect whose business and needs you’re already familiar with. The concerns of a very small business doing their own search marketing are, of course, very different from the companies for whom we are a line item on the budget. It’s frustrating for both us and them that to do the whole shebang—SEO, pay per click, some social media—requires people with a lot of different expertise areas, time, and work. Because of their size, these businesses aren’t likely to see a positive ROI for what they’ve put into web marketing services.

It’s immensely frustrating that everyone from the biggest corporations to the tiny corner grocery has a website, and you have to compete whether you have the resources or not. Not that it’s hopeless, impossible, or not worth doing yourself, but it’s not a set of hurdles you glibly want to send someone running through. Especially since different businesses in different areas will have different solutions.

After the talking, while we were eating, Susan and I were talking about what to do to help these small businesses with their search marketing solutions as far as informing them in a practical, helpful way. She suggested a one-day or half-day seminar. What kinds of things would you want to see in that? What topics would you want covered? How much time can someone like a self-employed parent give per week to this? What’s a comfortable budget? Got any other questions we should be addressing?