Question: I want to rank high in the search engines for "Web design in Cambridge," the city where I work. Is it better to optimize for "Web design" and "Cambridge" separately, or optimize for the entire phrase, which would be more meaningful to local clients, but might turn off clientele outside the immediate area?

Go after long-tail keywords

Whenever you're going after common or competitive keywords, you definitely want to optimize for the "longest tail" keywords as possible – that is, longer and more specific combinations of keywords that are going to be easier to rank for.

Trying to rank for "Web design" or "Cambridge" separately is going to be extremely difficult, as you will be competing with many more sites for these terms. You will be much more successful if you stick with the complete "Web design in Cambridge" term.

That said, if you think that targeting Cambridge might limit your business prospects, you might consider targeting a few additional local areas as keyword terms on your site. A simple way to do this is to keep the primary branding and messaging of your site focused on Web design, but create a few specific pages that emphasize the long-tail keywords. Think of each one as a separate landing page, even if all it does is provide information.

Submit your site to local-search listings

First and foremost, you need to take advantage of local search for the major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!. And don't stop there. Also try smaller local search engines, such as Yelp, Local.com or even the Yellow Pages.

Each local search engine has its own rules and procedures, but here's an idea of what to expect. Google has a manual submission process that requires you to prove that your business really does serve the area you are trying to target.

After these local listings accept your site, they will rank you higher for keywords related to your business than nonlocal sites. For example, in Cambridge search listings, you would rank higher for "Web design" than Web-design companies outside of the area.

Here are important factors to consider with local search:

1. Your company address and phone number must match the local area you are targeting. Search engines must be able to easily crawl that information on your site.

2. Customer reviews boost your "local" ranking.

3. If you are targeting multiple locations, make sure each location has its own "real" page with specific, targeted information. Don't just create multiple spammy pages with duplicate content. You won't fool search engines one bit if the only difference between your pages is the name of the location.

Companies who register for local search appear above other companies that rank high for the search term "Web design in Cambridge." 

About the Author

Jeff Jones is a Web-optimization specialist. He helps companies improve their Web sites, SEO results and PPC-campaign performance. Connect and collaborate with him on Twitter. 

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