Local SEO - ranking a page for two different cities

[SEOboarder]

I have a site that ranks very well for {service}{cityA} but I want it to rank for {service}{cityB} too.

My first thought is to create a separate landing page optimised for {service}{cityB}, but is there a better option?

Have one page for {service} and try and get it to rank for {city A} and {cityB} by  using different anchor text?

Anything else?

[AndySolo]

Do you have a physical location in both City A and City B? do you have google place pages for each location?

[SEOboarder]

No, we only have a physical location in City A and a single Google places entry. However, for the search term I'm optimising for, Google places results are not displayed.

[AndySolo]

Are you including the cities in your page titles and page descriptions? Do you mention the cities in your content body?

Page Title: Company | adjective product servicing city A & city B

maybe a sub-page for city A and a sub-page for city B

anchor text and links to the main page which will carry some juice to the sub-pages.

Link building strategy county-wide to the main page, link building city specific to the sub-pages.

I'm not super experienced so take my advice cautiously.

[SEOboarder]

That's the page title I would go for yes, my question was more "separate page for each city, or one page for both?". I like your idea of county-wide, then more specific pages for each city.

"I'm not super experienced so take my advice cautiously." Any ideas welcome! Thanks for your help.

[AndySolo]

I would probably do both options.

[SEOboarder]

This wouldn't be sensible - then you're trying to rank three pages (one for each city, then one for both) for the same search terms.

Best practice suggests (it's an old post, but it still stands: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/keyword-selfcannibalization ) that you should optimise for one or two keywords per page (a few more if your site's really authoritative), but not try and rank several pages for the same keyword. Google will pick which page on your site it thinks is the most relevant for that search, and display that one in the SERPS.

[BenFox]

I'd go for a separate page for CityA and CityB.

You'll probably want to promote the CityB page on other sites that are relevant to CityB - local directories etc.

[SEOboarder]

Thanks, this was my initial thought too - just wanted to check that was still considered best practice.