Look, let’s be honest: servicing and trying to rank well in areas outside the town or city where you’re physically located is difficult. After all, Google’s stacked the odds against you from the outset. You must have one heck of a search presence to even crack a chance at outranking another business with a physical location in the area.

But take heart—all hope is not lost. You can compete, but it won’t be easy. Here are some general principles to follow if you want to outrank your competitors in their home city:

1. Focus Your SEO Efforts on Local Pack Rankings and Realize Google Will Hammer You from Time to Time (Even If You Do Everything Right)

You must attract links to your location-based pages. You want reviews from customers in these locations who will also mention a specific city name on those pages.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? While the concept is easy to understand, it’s difficult to execute this in a completely legit, non-spammy way. Some companies do try to manipulate this by hiring people from India to post fake reviews (BIG mistake!). You may achieve decent rankings for a while, but eventually Google will pummel you.

Smart SEO companies employ strategies to do this in a 100% ethical, long-term manner that won’t cause rollercoaster-like rankings shifts.

2. Successfully Execute SEO Fundamentals

Generally, the fundamentals of ranking in local search include:

• Optimizing landing pages for each city you serve, loading them with unique, relevant content
• Strategizing methods to get reviews from specific pages onto these pages, which you can even do by writing a review for your customer and asking him or her to post the same
• Using schema (a totally legit and highly underutilized SEO technique) to mark up reviews and your name, address, and phone number (as well as every other possible way) to make it abundantly obvious to Google you serve a specific city
• Earning a handful of links that include the city and state you serve in the anchor text
• Including links to each location from the remainder of the site

If you’re really serious, you can consider opening an office in each physical location you service—knowing Google guidelines dictate you have staff and onsite signs for compliance purposes. So, make sure this process takes shape as a totally legitimate effort to expand your company rather than just manipulate your search rankings.

Wrapping Up

This all sounds like a ton of effort—and it is! Google wants only the best businesses to rank in each location, rather than companies merely looking for a rankings boost.

On a long-term basis, focus on building the best company you can while using SEO to increase your reach. This is truly the best strategy for success.