How to do proper onpage optimization for local Keywords?

This is a challenging question for many in the SEO and web marketing fields. There are hundreds of "best practices" lists for where to place keywords and how to do "on-page optimization," but as search engines have evolved and as other sources of traffic — social networks, referring links, email, blogs, etc. — have become more important and interconnected, the very nature of what's "optimal" is up for debate.


My perspective is certainly not gospel, but it's informed by years of experience, testing, failure, and learning alongside a lot of metrics from Moz's phenomenal data science team. I don't think there's one absolute right way to optimize a page, but I do think I can share a lot about the architecture of how to target content and increase the likelihood that it will:


A) Have the best opportunity to rank highly in Google and Bing
B) Earn traffic from social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.
C) Be worthy of links and shares from across the web
D) Build your brand's perception, trust, and potential to convert visitors...

Thank you very much for the very helpful and detailed answer Techxan!

Regarding Hummingbird and synonyms: I understand what you said about avoiding similar pages. But how does Hummingbird treat synonyms within an article? Lets Say you have a KW density of 1,5% for your main KW, 1,5% for synonym A and 1% for synonym B. Does Hummingbird add those % so that you would have a density of 4%?


EDIT: if you put your city name in the the title and h1 of every page of your different services, dont you run the risk of an overoptimization? I always read not to have the same KW in various titles. Maybe there is an exception for stuff like city and your company name though.

Address (City, State) in Page Title, Page H1/H2 Tags, Website URL. I've used it and it has worked

I always try to optimize other subpages for diffrent servises. it looks naturally.