City targeting on home page

[540SEO]

Client has a site that ranks well for "Town_A_KW", "Town_B_KW" and "Town_C_KW". The home page is the page that's ranking. These towns are part of the larger metro area for Portland. They want to start ranking for "Portland_KW" and normally, I'd recommend optimizing the home page for this phrase, and better optimizing the sub-pages for town A, B and C KW's.

The client is understandably nervous about messing with re-targeting the home page since it already ranks well. Is it best to:

1. Add "Portland_KW" to home page meta titles, content, etc. to try and rank for that phrase? (so home page would be optimized for Town A, B and C KW's + Portland_KW).

2. Re-target home page for "Portland_KW" only, and better optimize sub-pages for town A, B and C?

3. Leave home page as is, and create a "Portland KW" sub-page? (client's original idea).

Thanks in advance for your insights!

[AdoptionHelp]

I would go with #3 myself. Insert metaphor of choice here to round out the answer, maybe something about rocking boats?

[AnthonyMangia]

I think it depends on the niche and the level of competition.  My intuition tells me that the smaller towns around Portland should be relatively easy to rank for (depending on exactly how competitive your industry is), so option 2 could be pulled off without much trouble.  I think it makes the most sense from a user perspective.  This might take some convincing, and a bit of client education, but it may be worth the effort.

I wouldn't blame you for trying to implement option 1, however, given the concerns of your client.  You don't want to stretch your page too thin in terms of content and the number of keywords you're targeting, and you don't want to go over 65 characters with your Title tag, but if you can make it work, it's not a bad solution.

Option 3 doesn't seem to make a ton of sense from a user perspective.  I think given your question, you've already come to that conclusion on your own.

EDIT: I defer to EGOL.  When this man gives you advice, listen to it.

[EGOL]

I would do in this order....

1. Make content rich service description pages for Town A, B, and C.

2. When they start ranking as well as your current homepage I would then reoptimize the homepage for the Portland metro area.