Is it considered spam to promote a website in different cities?

[KLLC]

I have a client who wants to promote their Mobile application and website design company in California based cities.

• Example Keyword

1. los angeles iphone app development - Local Monthly Search 260
2. san diego iphone app development - Local Monthly Search 320
3. san jose iphone app development - Local Monthly Search  0
4. san francisco windows mobile app development - Local Monthly Search  0
5. california iphone app development - Local Monthly Search 0

• Selected san diego iphone app development

1. los angeles drupal web design - Local Monthly Search 0
2. san diego drupal web design - Local Monthly Search 0
3. san jose drupal web design - Local Monthly Search 0
4. san francisco graphic design - Local Monthly Search 3600
5. california drupal web design - Local Monthly Search 0

• Selected san francisco graphic design

I have 33 keywords in 5 cities. just want to know if it is considered spam?

[deltasystems]

The idea of promoting your website is not spam. Often the method you take to achieve this goal is.

Are you stuffing keywords into copy? That's spam. Are you building a large amount of long-tail exact-match links for those terms? Yeah, that's spammy too.

Honestly those numbers are too low. You should be focused on more broad keywords, and then if you're still concerned with local rankings by the time your domain is authoritative, rank for the city (cities?) where the business is located and nothing more.

[EGOL]

IMO, if you truly offer that service to people in those cities then it is not spam.  The problem that most people encounter with this type of promotion is generating unique content for each combination of product and location.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Konoozi,

If you offer these services in these cities, no, this is not spam. The question that does beg to be answered, however, is whether optimizing for these is actually going to get you results. Unless the client has a physical location and in-person transactions with his clients in each of these cities, he is not going to be able to seek local inclusion in Google+. So, in most cases, that would mean you'd be having to gun for organic rankings only, with the understanding that qualified, physical local businesses would outrank your client pretty much all of the time. Still, some traffic is better than none, right?

Now, there is a very interesting nuance here, in your specific case. If you client were, let's say, a general contractor, this scenario of lack of local inclusion would be really tough for you. But, your client is a website designer and app developer.  In my experience, Google is going to be unlikely to show local packs for your core search terms, anyway. For example, Google stopped showing local results for website design companies a couple of years ago. So, this is actually in your favor. Unlike the general contractor, you will not be competing against physical businesses for a lettered blended/local rankings. It's all going to be organic. So, again, what you want to do isn't spam, if you actually offer services to these communities.

My last bit of advice on this would be to be absolutely certain that your SEO efforts don't lead to a bunch of duplicate pages. Can you create truly unique content for the San Francisco Drupal Web Design page vs. the San Jose Drupal Web Design page? What you don't want to do is put up the same page 10 times with different title tags. So, the project is going to be a large one, requiring significant time/funding for unique copywriting and it will be important to educate the client about this so that they can take an effective, well-planned approach rather than a slap-dash one.

Thanks for asking such a good question here in Q&A!

[KLLC]

It totally makes sense. Thank you friends!!

[MiriamEllis]

Great to know. Good luck with the work ahead!