Is it better to use geo-targeted keywords or add the locations as separate keywords?

[Cyclone]

For example...

state keyword (nyc real estate)

or

keyword, state (nyc, real estate) = 2 keywords

Thanks in advance!

[SanketPatel]

Hi,

You can use keywords with your state and city, now days local SEO becomes more popular in SEO business. If you want to promote your business locally then it is best way to add city or state name into keywords. Do local Listing in your target country. If you want add multiple city then you have to create landing pages for that keywords.

[Cyclone]

Thanks for the reply,

Here is my issue with that scenario;

1.  If I have 3 states and 30 towns and each has a geo targeted page on my site I will run into duplicate content issues

2.  I will not get the link relevance from google to the main keyword "real estate" (in this scenario).

So if I am looking to target the keyword "real estate" in general but just geo target the website I would be shooting myself in the foot here.

The thing that I rely on is google using IPs to return relevant results to the user.  So if someone types in "real estate" and they live in NYC, they will get NYC results, not just in the maps section either but in the SERPs as well.  So seeing that google is already geo targeting via the IP address, and let's say I want to do NYC and LA at the same time, I would want to target "real estate" in general and just geo target inbound linking pages back to the root domain.  This way it makes it where I don't have to have so many pages in my site and also I am optimized for the keyword "real estate" and "location" separately, and in turn I keep the integrity of my websites national or time zone campaign approach for the keyword "real estate."  Would this not be a good approach?

Also the other part of that, does google pick up a location in a description along with the keyword and correlate them enough to give it relevance.

I am just playing devils advocate here because I am not sure what the right answer is.

***So the main thing is to not waste resources optimizing "nyc real estate" when I can be optimizing "real estate" with the location attached somewhere else and let google play with the combinations (nyc real estate, real estate nyc, etc.).

[KaneJamison]

Responded in the other thread per your request - hope I got all of your points from this thread:

http://www.seomoz.org/q/is-it-better-to-have-urls-of-internal-pages-that-are-geo-targeted-or-point-geo-targeted-links-to-the-homepage#post-117343