Ian, thanks very much. I appreciate your response and clarification, and openness. And I agree with you, of course, about your approach - when in doubt ask what is the best way to optimise for users. Link-building is a must too - and I am doing it.
But I am left with a confusion about on-page optimisation - and it's specifically about very small businesses and very small sites: ours is and many of my clients' are (I don't have many clients but they rely on me heavily). I am doing another similar but slightly larger site at the moment and am concerned about similar issues. I am a PRO member and will ask a PRO question to see if they can provide any more light - it may well be the end advice will be the same of course, and, indeed, my own instinct is to go with yours but I need to relate the advice more clearly to those principles I described in my previous post, and at the moment I can't.
Thank you for putting up with my verbiage - I rambled far too much, I am sorry and appreciate your patience with that - it always means a confused mind! But as a a result of this discussion, I am now much clearer how to focus a more general question more succinctly.
Thank you for you help, and I wish you luck, too, Ian.
Peter