This is an impossible question to answer because I really didn’t give enough information. If I were answering this, I’d say “it depends on the site, the business, the industry they’re in, etc.” Props to all of you for not taking the easy way out. I was actually curious to see if anyone would choose the site map page. (Not the XML sitemap, the on-site site map page.) Assuming the home page links to the site map, you could theoretically optimize the you-know-what out of that site map, and give more weight and relevancy to all those internal links pointing out to the rest of the site. I’m not sure that would be my answer (depends on the above factors), but I think it would be something to consider.

I also like Robert Carter’s, Jaan’s, Martijn’s, and Jono’s ideas, too. Thanks again for the interesting discussion.

Of course this depends on the business, local or national are 2 different animals – I wouldn’t bother wasting my time if it was a national deal, unless of course we’re talking a BIG client. If they’re local, and not attorneys or in real estate, I would check out their services/ products – examine the competition – pick the one that has the best chance ( i could care less if the page has any ranking at all, as long as it’s indexed. ).

The one thing I would investigate beforehand though is site navigation. If the homepage, or any other page on the site, has links that are unreadable by the search engines due to some crappy javascript menu or something else, I might bow out. Then it WOULD require much more work-link building, article writing with links back to that page, etc… not worth it. Otherwise, on-page optimization should do the trick for the most part.

I’m consistently able to get dramatic improvement in rankings almost immediately (within a few weeks anyway-often to the first page of google within a month or two) with most sites, just by fixing up the on-page issues. The key is organizing the content on the site correctly to begin with – that’s why I wouldn’t really do this type of job, unless we had a signed agreement that if this page improved by some pre-determined amount in the search engines, they agree to run a campaign.

Anyone?

Remember the most powerful thing you can do for a client is MAKE THEM MONEY.