No, they never paid me anything beyond the initial price though I did a few "favors" for them since then.  Nothing I charged for. 

It was well established in the beginning that I was hired to get their store up and running, submit the site to search engines, and ask for a link exchange with a list of sites they gave me.  The problem is there was no contract written up for this deal.  A mistake I have learned from.

It would help if you had a contract, but I think you are within your rights tell tell them no. You did what you agreed to do. As long as you specifically told them that you couldn't guarantee search engine placement (I ALWAYS specify that, just in case) I think you are in the clear.

In that case, give them back 50% of what they paid you for the SEO Placement. 

Who has a calculator - what's 50% of ZERO again?

No..no..nooo. You just can't do that. This will certainly upset the customer in which they might start giving bad reports to friends, associates, etc.  He can state all the work he has done but he has already done the work with the agreed price.  You just can't come back months later and say.."Oh...by the way, I forgot to bill you for this stuff." especially if the contract/agreement has been completed.

I do not know the full extent of this store using Joomla but if you are not careful you can leave many remnants of the word "Joomla" or credits which could appear in Google/Yahoo. This also includes any components or modules.

As a web designer, I would provide your client all the resources they need to help improved their sites ranking. The way I do it is that I have a set of url bookmarks to SEO sites that has tips, tutorials and even software download. I just zip the bookmarks together and email them to my clients.  Normally this should be done when the project begins but sometime it helps to send them at the end of the project as well.

That was actually something I explained to them in detail at the beginning.  I knew from my own experience that more content equals a better chance of search placement simple because there is more content for search engines to "choose" from.  They have very little content and I explained that would be a factor.

Honestly, I know what this is all about.  They are not generating the sales they wanted from their online store and, unfortunately, they have chosen me to blame for it.  I can hardly see how it's my fault that we're in an economic recession and people are not searching for or buying blueberry-themed jewelry.

Agreed.

Well - I googled 'blueberry themed jewelry and got 2 hits - some other site and yours.  And when I go to yours, where I find their site, I notice that it's all images - and not a thing for search engines to find.  Even that short little paragraph, which is the only thing that's left after I disable images does not have any good and relevant key words in it. 

I hate to say it, but as a webdesigner, even if we're not SEO masters, we need to be aware of the basic SEO requirements and design with them in mind - I think the site is beautiful, but for search engines it's useless.  I mean with 2 results for that key word - they should be nr. 3 the least.

Now as to who would ever have the urge to google 'blueberry themed jewelry ---- there I have no answers.

That wasn't the original intention of the homepage.  It originally went straight to the Joomla store.  A graphic designer did that homepage graphic and asked me to make it the index page after the fact.  The cost to replicate his graphic in a web-friendly page was too much additional cost for them.

OH well, sounds like it is on them again and I would say no for all the more reason is a nice diplomatic letter explaining the problems and what needs to be done to improve it.

Thanks for the input.  I have tried to practice as good of ethics in business as possible and felt I was right in telling them "no" on this matter.  I just wondered your thoughts.  Thanks.

Always trust your gut. You will have clients you cannot make happy or expect allot but want to pay little. You have to be able to say no if your gut is uneasy. Bad clients can ruin your love of web design and you will not do your best work for them so maybe hurt your Portfolio. Always be ready to say no. Those bad clients are never worth the money they pay.