Should I go for local keyword optimization?

Of course he should target local traffic. Unless he is going to travel or has a network of other cleaners setup to distribute leads to, what good does it do him if someone from Florida finds his website?

Yes local search is so much easier to rank for. So I guess these are 2 distinct areas, so it may be an idea to have a separate page to promote for each area.Then you can target one phrase per page.

I recommend targeting both. So let's use "commercial cleaning" and "commercial cleaning Baltimore" as examples.

As of right now, "commercial cleaning" gets 14,800 hits per month and "commercial cleaning Baltimore" gets 30 hits per month.

So, "commercial cleaning Baltimore" is hypothetically easier.

Those 14,800 searches for "commercial cleaning" are coming from everywhere. However, ranking for general search terms, such as "commercial cleaning", may not be as hard as it sounds. You have to keep in mind that Google is going to be basing their results off of where the user is when they search...

This means that someone in Miami searching for "commercial cleaning" will get Miami results, while someone in Baltimore searching for "commercial cleaning" will get Baltimore results.

You may even look at something like "commercial cleaning company" (2,900 hits per month), because people searching this are actually looking for a company, rather than general information.

So, use the "keyword within a keyword" strategy and optimize for both.

Hope this helps!

Without a question you want to target local.... Start with a Google for business listing.. do you have multiple physical office locations? if so you want to ensure you have one for each.

One thing you want to look at when dealing with more than one metro area ( Baltimore and DC ) is the overlap or lack there of. If you google Washington DC commercial cleaners, you get a 3 pack and then there is a link "More places" brings up a map that displays all of the business.... then do the same for Baltimore. you see that there is a gap between the 2, and there are communities within those gaps.

You want pages that target each and every "community" you serve NOT Metros only IE not just Baltimore, but Baltimore, Edgemere, Dundalk, Cherry Hill, Hampden so on and so on. The outskirt communities will be the low laying fruit in terms of getting good solid SERP listings.

I am not there physically, but I do know the main internet trunk runs right through there. so the possibility of say someone in Annapolis that types in "Annapolis commercial cleaner" may actually get local results someone in Odenton may actually get local results.

It might actually be worth your time to drive around to these areas with a mobile device and see exactly what the search results are, to visually see how Google geographically works in your area.

Hope that Helps!

Initially I would suggest to focus on local long tail as well as regular keywords and after some time say 6 months or when your business gets booming then start with location independent keywords like "commercial cleaning" for maximum influence.

That would be a great idea to target locally, especially as the website ranking for the searchers in a relevant area may bring you much more relevant traffic and increase the real conversion rate. It might be a good idea to create several separate pages for local offices/activities, specify the addresses separately and optimize the pages each for its own location.

One must start with local keywords so that it can help his/her business to get popularity from the location where it is started. Targeting local keywords is wonderful to show your business presence on a small location as it helps to popularize worldwide slowly slowly.

First let the people know about your business from where you started and afterwords start promoting in other locations where you're targeting.

This is what you should do:

Optimize the title tag of the homepage links this: Keyword phrase 1 - keyword phrase 2 - serving in "locations"

And yes it is necessary. If the cities aren't mentioned in the title tag, you will be placed much lower in the searches.

You guys want local traffic? Or national? Want you sell your products/service locally or nationally? First decide about your targeted area. But in my point of view it's better to start with local keywords first. If local keywords do good and if you want to spread out then you can set up goal for national. Happy working