Need help with local SEO

I want to learn a lot about local SEO. I know a good deal about regular SEO, but I want to learn how to rank businesses in a certain area for a kw's.

Right now, I mainly want to know how to rank a business that is in once city, for another city and a kw.

If anybody can help me out with my local SEO journey please let me know.

Start ranking long tail keywords

Example: if your niche is say... books and you are in New York

you would rank keywords such as: ny books, nyc best comedy books, and so on...

And obviously check with google analytics on what people actually search on local searches

Hope that gets you started

but what if the place that wants me to rank them for city A, but there address is in city B. How would i do that?

Also, to rank a business in a certain city for a kw, I have to put that city in the kw right?

1. You can rank Kw for city a in city b

2. And yes you have to include the city

Do you think you could tell me how to do that?

Would i just put the name of city A in the keyword I want to rank for, instead of city B?

Google provides Google Places results for local queries. If not in 100% cases, then definitely in most of them.

Which means you have to figure out how to rank higher in those. You'd need to create a Google+ Local listing for your business, with the address and phone number, etc.

But then if you want to pretend you're relevant for an entirely different location, that may not actually work.
So, basically, you'd need:
- A Google+ local page
- Ratings and reviews of that page
- Other webpages (preferable reputable directories) mentioning your business name, address and phone number - ideal
- A website linked to your local page that also has the right locally marked keywords on it.
It's also recommended to set a geo target in Google Webmaster Tools- Backlinks to the site associated with the local listing.

Besides, I normally use Powersuite's Rank Tracker to see where my listing ranks to users searching from various locations (because different people would get different results, depending on where they are).