When potential customers search for your “product or service + city, state” you want to be found.

Although this may be basic info for the more experienced developer, for those focusing on improved exposure in local search this info will be extremely valuable.

1. Do keyword research using Google Keyword Tool – Make sure there is search volume.
2. Have proper title tags – 66-70 characters
3. Meta description – Include your keyword and make them enticing – the searcher see this
4. Include the Robots.txt file and do not block the search engines
5. Add content to your website. Keep it fresh and write for the user. Use keywords in your blog posts to link back to the pages that you want to rank for.
6. Set up google authorship and test
7. Install social sharing icons on your website.
8. Don’t just focus on SEO – Go where your potential customers are and interact with them.
9. Properly name your images with alt text, description even going so far as to edit the properties of the image with more description.
10. Use unique images. Don’t get upset if someone steals your images, but ask them for a link in exchange
11. Make a page for product or service pluse area you offer your product or service in. A simple “services” page will not do
12. Write unique content – don’t just change the name of the city on the page.
13. Submit your website to Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools.
14. Install Google Analytics
15. Install an SEO plugin on your website such as Yoast.
16. Create an XML sitemap.
17. Use proper page names and use – (dashes) not _ underscores
18. Use heading tags to help tell google what your site is about
19. Be concerned about site speed.
20. Check for page errors within Webmaster tools.
21. Install Schema.org markup – Local Business Micro Data
22. Set up your Google Places for business listing, Bing Places and Yahoo Local listing – And many more see Get listed.org