Personal opinion based on my experience.
Put your NAP on every page of the site in micro code.
Get only the best local citations, forget the crappy ones.
Write for your reader, not SEO. KW density is irrelevant.
All of your backlinks should come from related sources. Related by niche or location.
Be sure to check local radio stations and TV stations, often they have local business listings on their websites.
Look for entities that serve your niche for backlinks. Product distributors will often have an online list of retailers you can list with.
Publish white papers, and share them out. Same with video and pod casts.
Use REAL press releases.
Put coupons for discount on coupon sites, the quality ones anyway.
Create a piece of software, and give it away to the public using software download directories. (PAD submits)
Do some content marketing (not really SEO, though)
If your customer is a craftsman, put up project summaries. These are filled with information that customers love and they have nothing but related content. A project summary of a plumber is only going to talk about plumbing. It also showcases their work quality, and creates new content for the site, (all related) and multiple co0ntextual internal linking possibilities.
To see other bath renovations, go here, and here.
Use sites like Houzz to post projects to and to promote their businesses.
A great way to get a local link is by supporting sports teams and school organizations. If necessary, build them a site and give it away to the teams or club. Be sure there is one link on the home page to your site, saying "YOURBUSINESS is proud to sponsor the youth in CITYNAME". Encourage the team members and their families to share these sites in social media. Use sites like you like hits and link collider to gain social signals for these "tier 1" sites.
Do the same as above for local school districts/clubs and municipal utility districts if they do not have one. You may find yourself the webmaster of a .gov or .edu site.
Participate in local events by sponsoring runners, bowlers and so on.
After the event put put a press release about how you like helping the community and the event. Write an article about the event for your own site, and when possible, point ouit other businesses that participated . Let these businesses know that you have mentioned them in your article or in the release.
(especially if they are related to yours. There is nothing sweeter than a competitor giving you a link from their site because they want the publicity from your site.)
ANY site that you mention NAP on will be a citation. This includes suppliers and product manufacturers. If you can leave it in forums, answer sites and so on, it will count. Don't do this on crappy sites.
"Can anyone recommend a carpet cleaner?"
"Sure, I use xxx, 12234 whateverlane, phone such and such, give him a call and tell him Brian sent you"
glad you could take something from it. I also wrote another thread about boosting rankings.... 
