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Hi Travis, Yes, that's correct - no geo information in any way in the business description field. If you want to use service keywords in this field as part of your description, I would advise that you not repeat any words that have already been used in the categories. What I like to put in the business description field, where I can, is whatever the company has most bragging rights to. Things like: Voted #1 by Local Living Magazine. 100% money back guarantee. Serving our neighbors since 1935. Lifetime warranty on all our work. Or, if this client carries a certain brand or performs a popular service that was not already used in the categories, I like to focus on those keywords. For instance, a dentist's description might include: Let's build the smile of your dreams with Invisalign technology. I like to use this field to set my client apart as more popular, safer, older, better, or what have you. Note, this may not be every Local SEO's favorite use of the description tag, but I have seen it work well for my clients.

Wow, thanks for that... It's interesting, because that would take the reseller option out - as a client may want something one year and not the next. So far the yahoo local visibility - I'm not impressed ... I 'submitted to over 100 directories' for a month i've had two listings, and my merchant circle is 'inaccurate' because the last time it was updated in their system was in November, 2012.  Of course it's inaccurate- and there's no way to submit a refresh from what i see. By hte two listings part what i mean is i have 9 suggested citations available that i'm missing as opportunities, but yet i have accounts for all of them and Getlisted.org shows I have all but one of those, but have an account on the missing one? Yahoo's reporting is horrible and from what i've seen so far is that its information is so outdated, great concept - poorly executed... Yext, being handcufffed is a real deal breaker, what happens when they decide to stop their 'DISCOUNT' marketing ploy and start charging you waht they claim is their 'full price' ...  What a nightmare that would be for all your stuff to just drop. All things considered - Yahoo's price is very reasonable  - but it's lack of update and accuracy(IMO), and 'sub-par' reports, would make me say that it's a no-go... Yext is a little pricey and can sticker-shock some people who are just starting up and don't understand the value of local citations completely.. But for them to have all their info, possibly get some results and then crash and burn worse than Maverick - The 'why' that happened, would not be a conversation i would ever want to have. -- There's also Whitespark, and from what I've seen it's almost more cost effective than Yext ($4/listing), you know what they've done... and You wont be inundated with  outdated information which is absolutely useless you may of done 'incorrectly prior and fixed since then, and now notified that that thing you corrected is fixed, but we'll tell you it isn't (Yahoo if you didn't infer that from the text). One issue I have, is that i have one site that has an address wrong completely and I can't find that citation anywhere from where they 'pulled' their information.  It's a local newspaper with a few dozen directory subsites..  Any help would be appreciated. Anyway, I appreciate the input/discussion...  and apparently there's no easy way out, sometimes you just gotta get your hands dirty.

Cool, seems like www. is the way to go. Good luck!

Thanks for hte help, but it seemed it was just a google ranking spike for some new content and now things appear to be returning to normal

Finding a good niche seems the most important and interesting for Keyword Research.. What I really found useful are Raven Tools what @David mentioned and Keyword Tools from WordTracker. SEMRush is also really good and what I'm really obsessed right now it NicheBot (found here http://www.seomoz.org/dp/the-internet-marketing-handbook ). It seems it's integrated both WordTracker Tools and SEMRush and for a much achievable price. Also I've checked HitTail.com which shows you the exact long-tails and you don't need to figure them out yourself. It wokrks only if you already have and existing site with visitors. How were your tests? Interested in what you've found!

Sorry i didn't reply sooner, but thank you for answering the question.  Your article made me identify a lot of concerns and thought maybe that the practice was in fact something that may end up problematic. I appreciate it.