She could try paying for content through Yahoo Voices (formerly Associated Content) or something similar, then use that to populate a website that she has built by a place like Weebly that also does the hosting. Hosting is like $60 a year, I think the site design might be ~$200 or so? Weebly also has e-commerce solutions built-in IIRC.
SEO is tough to figure out but Google provides information for webmasters on how to make content searchable. I think the rule of thumb is something like 4% of your content needs to include your keywords to get good page rank. They provide a lot of other tips on searchability, I forgot where the info is located but it's probably under 'google webmaster tips' or something like that. It's put out by Google so you know it's accurate.
I'm a self-taught hack but was able to do pretty well with a blog and with a GTA V website I used to have. The GTA site hit page one a few times (in a very competitive search term with GTA V). The content was written as a sort of a proof of concept and eventually delivered hits.
The blog is still page one and dominant, but is niche, has less competition in search, and a crapload of content (way more than the GTA V one)...all of which conspired together to give me page one. I'm guessing she won't be as niche and will be more competitive, so it'll be more difficult to get good page rank but hey...if I can do it...
The key to it all is for your friend to have a lot of keyword-rich content, and as mentioned she can pay for that through one of those content mills like Yahoo of creating it from scratch is too time-consuming.
Too bad you're not local I would just help you guys out for free. If you/she has any questions just ask, I'm happy to help.