This is all extremely helpful, thankyou; I will be contacting each of the consultantancies suggested. The things I wish I'd known before I started, honestly ... chief among which must be - don't build your site in Flash!

I'd recommend some friends of mine who are local (norbury), relatively reasonably priced but definitely professional:
http://www.littlebean-design.co.uk/

You can say 'Briony' recommended you contact them.

Briony

I have recently used a guy in sussex who works from home, he has fully optimised my site and brought me up to date with facebook and twitter links and has been extremely generous with his time and expertise for a really good price.I have been putting it off for months because it seems like an endless pit to throw money at but I am already no 1 on google globally!
http://www.lewesseo.com/

RBO Consulting ([url]http://www.rboconsulting.com[/url]) can certainly assist as it's one of our core specialisms along with web design and social media optimisation. We are Wandsworth based which may be of benefit.

I recommend my husband Pete [color=#0040FF]pete@webfountain.co.uk[/color]. (We are wandsworth based) I think he can help you!
020 8874 3359
Jan

Any 'SEO' specialists or techies out there? Been trying to study-up on my own but the number of conflicting opinions is driving me nuts! Please PM me if you know anyone good.

Got our Facebook page up and running (you can see it here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allabouthair/144157025625445 ) but this 'search engine optimization' mullarkey is something else altogether ....