Geotargeting is an SEO strategy used to focus keyword optimization for a specific geographic location. If you have a geographically centric business such as a real estate office, insurance company, or a local car lot, you should be putting some effort into creating geocentric content for your website or blog.
The basics of geotargeting are relatively easy; you are selling to a specific area, so market to that area with specific keyword modifiers. For example, instead of discussing your new 'hair style shop', make sure you modify your keywords with your local city, or nearest large city. Here is my comparison using this example...
Don't use: 'We just opened our new hair style shop, and we invite you to come to our open house.'
Do use: 'We just opened our new Detroit hair style shop, and we invite you to come to our open house.'
By including the location in your copywriting, you are helping your local customers find you more easily, and filtering out all those people who are searching for a style shop in another part of the country.
Additionally, you are reducing the amount of competition you have for the keyword term. There may be several million sites vying for 'style shop', but only a relative handful competing for 'detroit style shop'.
You can combine geotargeting with specialty modifiers to reduce competition even further. For instance if you are a style shop that specialized in hair coloring, you might pitch yourself as a 'detroit style shop for hair coloring'. In this way, you reduce the number of people who compete with you for the key phrase.
Note that by getting so specific, you are also reducing the number of people who will be searching for you to a specific set of customers who may search for a hair color style shop in Detroit. Don't worry; what you have done is target your optimal customer, which means you have increased your rate of conversion because you have attracted a very specific search to an exact match.
The more general your terms, the more people you may attract, however you will also have to weed through a lot more searchers to get a single conversion. The more specific you can be, the fewer hits you will get, however the hits you do get will be more valuable.
Geotargeting is an important tool in web marketing, especially when you are a geocentric product or service.