It makes sense that the more value you can provide a customer the better. If a customer has a site that needs SEO and doesn't have a webmaster, then I am sure they would rather work with a company that can recommend changes and implement them. Saves time and money!

Standard practice at my company is to "recommend" SEO or programming recommendations (301 redirects, xml sitemaps and the occasional URL rewrite) rather than actual implementation. However, occassionally a client will need some quick and dirty implementation that I, or one of my associate SEO account managers, can usually handle through an FTP program like HTML kit. However,I have found a lot of wonky CMS systems and the occassional "framed" website that I typically stay away from. Of course, rules can be bent depending on the situation - or attitude of a client.

Many of us offer coding because customers just can't find anyone else to do the work. I'd love to just provide good advice, but clients get zero value if they can't implement...

im not surprised by the results.

I believe in being able to *do* what you *sell*. In most cases we will do all of the work associated with our recommendations for a couple of reasons. The obvious one is that it gets done correctly, and the real one is that it gets done at all. It's amazing how many big companies pay good money for SEO recos and never implement them.

I get many of my best SEO ideas when I'm ankle deep in someone's code. I sometimes do have to function purely as a consultant but I find it very frustrating and frankly don't believe I'm able to give of my best that way.

BB

I think the best SEO people are mathematical and logical thinkers and this also applies to coders. As there is a close skills and the overlap in industrial terms is close I think it is only natural the the same people do coding and SEO.

I will do both. I prefer when I get to make the changes because the alternative is then have to argue with developers. They take changes like that as an insult and it seem stupid to them. I spent a week adding unique titles and descriptions to a big site and a few months later the coder just put back the code that put the same title and description on every page.

I believe that those who only choose to work on the changes themselves are right. When you make recommendations the changes are out of your control, and if they are implemented inccorectly or even worse not at all, then the results won't reflect the recommedation made.