5 Ways to Improve Your Local Ranking in Cities Where You Don't Have an Address

Patrick McFadden • October 3, 2023

Local SEO is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, helping businesses connect with potential customers in their vicinity. However, what if your business aims to expand its reach to cities where you don't have a physical address? Can you still improve your local search ranking in those areas? The answer is yes. In this article, we will explore five effective strategies to enhance your local search presence in cities where your business lacks a physical location.

1. Craft City-Specific Landing Pages

To excel in cities where you lack a physical address, kickstart your efforts by creating dedicated landing pages for each target city. Populate these pages with relevant, valuable content, such as details about your offerings, customer testimonials, and contact information. Tailor your content to cater to the unique characteristics and needs of each city.

City Pages Demystified:

To rank in local organic search results for areas beyond your current location, you need well-crafted city landing pages. When you invest the time and effort in creating informative and relevant pages, you have the potential to attract substantial traffic and leads without establishing a physical presence in these cities.


City pages share similarities with location-specific landing pages, with one key distinction: they lack a physical business address in the desired ranking city. However, both types of pages adhere to the same fundamental principles and elements.


City pages are particularly beneficial for:


  • Businesses with a single location serving clients in surrounding cities.
  • Service area businesses without a physical office, serving clients across multiple cities.
  • Any business aiming to secure rankings in cities where they lack a physical presence.

2. Optimize for Local Keywords

In the realm of SEO, the path of least resistance often leads to the best results. While Google has improved in delivering Map Packs in search engine results pages (SERPs), it frequently surrounds these results with organic listings it deems relevant.


When it comes to improving your local SEO in cities where you lack a physical address, optimizing your website plays a pivotal role. Google needs to understand that your business has a genuine presence in these cities, and you can achieve this through strategic website optimization, including internal linking.


Here's how to optimize your website for local relevance and enhance your internal linking strategy:


A. City-Specific Landing Pages: Create dedicated landing pages for each target city you want to rank in. These pages should include valuable content relevant to the city, such as information about your services, local customer testimonials, and any special offers or promotions specific to that area. For instance, if you operate a plumbing service expanding to Denver, design a landing page titled "Expert Plumbing Services in Denver" and fill it with details about your plumbing services available in Denver.

B. Geotargeted Keywords: Research and incorporate city-specific keywords into your website's content, meta tags, and descriptions. Make sure these keywords appear naturally within your content to avoid keyword stuffing. For example, if you're a pest control company aiming to attract customers in San Francisco, optimize your "San Francisco Pest Control" page with keywords like "best pest control in San Francisco" and "San Francisco rodent removal."

C. Internal Linking Strategy: Enhance your internal linking structure to emphasize your presence in target cities. Whenever you mention a specific city or location on your website, link it to the corresponding city-specific landing page. This practice not only guides users to relevant content but also signals to search engines that you have a presence in those cities. For instance, if your home remodeling business is expanding to Austin, link the mention of "Austin home renovation" in your blog post to your "Home Remodeling in Austin" landing page.


Examples of Effective Website Optimization and Internal Linking:


  1. City Landing Pages: Imagine you run a local HVAC repair service expanding to multiple cities, including Phoenix. Create city-specific landing pages like "Phoenix HVAC Repair Experts." Populate these pages with information about your HVAC repair services in Phoenix, including emergency services, customer reviews from Phoenix clients, and tips for maintaining HVAC systems in the Arizona climate. Optimize the content with keywords like "top HVAC repair in Phoenix" and "Phoenix heating and cooling specialists."
  2. Geotargeted Content: As a lawn care company branching out to Dallas, tailor your blog posts to include Dallas-specific lawn care tips and insights. If you publish an article about "Summer Lawn Maintenance," insert a section about "Keeping Lawns Healthy in Dallas" and link it to your "Lawn Care Services in Dallas" page.
  3. Strategic Internal Linking: Suppose you're a local electrical repair company expanding to Houston. On your "Services" page, where you discuss "Electrical Repairs," include links within the content to relevant city-specific landing pages. For instance, when you mention "Houston electrical services," link it to your "Electrical Repairs in Houston" page.
  4. Localized Service Pages: If you operate a local plumbing service and want to attract customers in Miami, create service pages specifically for Miami residents. Feature plumbing services tailored to Miami's unique needs and optimize these pages with keywords like "Miami plumbing experts" and "Miami emergency plumbing services."


By optimizing your website with city-specific landing pages, geotargeted keywords, and strategic internal linking, you'll send strong signals to search engines that your business has a genuine presence in the target cities. This approach not only enhances your local SEO but also improves your chances of ranking well in local search results, even without a physical address in those areas.

3. Leverage Local Directories & Strategic Backlinking

In addition to local citations and online directories, a smart backlinking strategy can significantly bolster your local SEO efforts in cities where you lack a physical address. Backlinks from authoritative websites can enhance your website's credibility and improve its ranking for local searches. Moreover, when these backlinks include city-specific anchor text, they send strong signals to search engines about your local relevance.


Here's how to implement an effective backlinking strategy:


A. Build Relationships with Local Businesses: Forge partnerships with local businesses, especially those in your target cities. Collaborate on content, events, or promotions that can be mutually beneficial. In return, you can request backlinks from their websites to your city-specific landing pages. For instance, if you're a digital marketing agency aiming to expand to Austin, Texas, collaborate with a local Austin-based business on a joint event and request a backlink from their website to your dedicated "Digital Marketing Services in Austin" page.

B. Guest Posting: Contribute guest posts to reputable local blogs and publications that cater to your target cities. Ensure that your guest posts include contextual backlinks with city-specific anchor text. For example, if you provide pet grooming services and want to reach customers in Seattle, you can write a guest post for a Seattle pet care blog. Within the post, link back to your "Seattle Pet Grooming Experts" page using anchor text like "best pet groomers in Seattle."

C. Local Sponsorships and Events: If your business sponsors or participates in local events, ask for online recognition. Event organizers or local news outlets often feature sponsors on their websites, providing an excellent opportunity for backlinks. If you sponsor a charity run in Denver, request a backlink with anchor text like "Proud Sponsor of Denver Charity Run" to your "Community Involvement in Denver" page.

D. Partner with Local Organizations: Collaborate with local chambers of commerce, industry associations, or non-profits in your target cities. These organizations frequently have websites where they list their partners and members. Request a backlink to your business website with relevant anchor text, such as "Premium Member of Austin Chamber of Commerce," linking to your "About Us in Austin" page.


By strategically earning backlinks with city-specific anchor text, you can boost your local SEO efforts in cities where you lack a physical address. These backlinks not only enhance your website's authority but also reinforce your local relevance, improving your visibility and rankings in local search results.

4. Consider Obtaining a Physical Address

While it may entail some effort, obtaining a physical address for your business in each target city can be a viable strategy if the potential business justifies the investment. Weigh the cost of office space, marketing endeavors, and coordination against the lifetime value of a customer to determine if this approach aligns with your business goals. Select office locations close to city centers to enhance visibility and credibility in the local market.

5. Explore Paid Advertising

With local ranking becoming increasingly challenging, businesses without a physical presence in their target city face hurdles in showing up in results. In such cases, paid advertising can be a valuable solution. Local Services ads, which directly generate leads from Google (charging per lead, not per click), occupy the top spot in search results. These ads are available in specific ad regions and industries. If these ads fit your business, they can offer several benefits, including top placement, the Google Guaranteed badge, review ratings, inclusion in voice search results, and more.


Should Local Services ads not be an option, consider launching a PPC campaign for your city pages. This is an effective way to gauge the campaign's effectiveness in gaining business from other cities.


In highly competitive markets, incorporating paid advertising to boost traffic and attract customers from different cities is often a necessity.



By implementing these strategies, your business can expand its local reach, even in cities where it lacks a physical address. These methods capitalize on the advantages that smaller, local businesses possess—the ability to fine-tune their SEO efforts for optimal results.

The Missing Layer in AI: Why Judgment, Not Just Data, Will Define the Next Era of Intelligence

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Everyone is scaling outputs. Almost no one is scaling judgment.

Everyone Talks About AI Judgment. We Built It.

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Ask anyone in tech where AI is headed, and they’ll tell you: “The next leap is reasoning.” “AI needs judgment.” “We need assistants that think, not just answer.” They’re right. But while everyone’s talking about it, almost no one is actually shipping it. So we did. We built Thinking OS™ —a system that doesn’t just help AI answer questions… It helps AI think like a strategist. It helps AI decide like an operator. It helps teams and platforms scale judgment, n ot just generate output. The Theory Isn’t New. The Implementation Is. The idea of layering strategic thinking and judgment into AI isn’t new in theory. The problem is, no one’s been able to implement it effectively at scale. Let’s look at the current landscape. 1. Big Tech Has the Muscle—But Not the Mind OpenAI / ChatGPT ✅ Strength: Best-in-class language generation ❌ Limitation: No built-in judgment or reasoning. You must provide the structure. Otherwise, it follows instructions, not strategy. Google DeepMind / Gemini ✅ Known for advanced decision-making (e.g., AlphaGo) ❌ But only in structured environments like games—not messy, real-world business scenarios. Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), Microsoft Copilot ✅ Great at answering questions and following commands ❌ But they’re assistants, not advisors. They won’t reprioritize. They won’t challenge your assumptions. They don’t ask: “Is this the right move?” These tools are powerful—but they don’t think for outcomes the way a strategist or operator would. 2. Who’s Actually Building the Thinking Layer™? This is where it gets interesting—and thin. Startups and Indie Builders Some small teams are quietly: Creating custom GPTs that mimic how experts reason Layering in business context, priorities, and tradeoffs Embedding decision logic so AI can guide, not just execute But these efforts are: Highly manual Difficult to scale Fragmented and experimental Enterprise Experiments A few companies (Salesforce, HubSpot, and others) are exploring more “judgment-aware” AI copilots. These systems can: Flag inconsistencies Recommend next actions Occasionally surface priorities based on internal logic But most of it is still: In early R&D Custom-coded Unproven beyond narrow use cases That’s Why Thinking OS™ Is Different Instead of waiting for a lab to crack it, we built a modular thinking system that installs like infrastructure. Thinking OS™: Captures how real experts reason Embeds judgment into layers AI can use Deploys into tools like ChatGPT or enterprise systems Helps teams think together, consistently, at scale It’s not another assistant. It’s the missing layer that turns outputs into outcomes. So… Is This a New Innovation? Yes—in practice. Everyone says AI needs judgment. But judgment isn’t an idea. It’s a system. It requires: Persistent memory Contextual awareness Tradeoff evaluation Value-based decisions Strategy that evolves with goals Thinking OS™ delivers that. And unlike the R&D experiments in Big Tech, it’s built for: Operators Consultants Platform founders Growth-stage teams that need to scale decision quality, not just content creation If Someone Told You They’ve Built a Thinking + Judgment Layer™… They’ve built something only a handful of people in the world are even attempting. Because this isn’t just AI that speaks fluently. It’s AI that reasons, reflects , and chooses. And in a world that’s drowning in tools, judgment becomes the differentiator. That’s the OS We Built Thinking OS™ is not a prompt pack. It’s not a dashboard. It’s not a glorified chatbot. It’s a decision architecture you can license, embed, or deploy— To help your team, your platform, or your clients think better at scale. We’ve moved past content. We’re building cognition. Let’s talk.

We Found the Missing Layer AI Has Been Waiting For

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
In every era of innovation, there’s a silent bottleneck—something obvious in hindsight, but elusive until the moment it clicks. In today’s AI-driven world, that bottleneck is clear: AI has speed. It has scale. But it doesn’t have judgment . It doesn’t really think . What’s Actually Missing From AI? When experts talk about the “thinking and judgment layer” as the next leap for AI, they’re calling out a hard truth: Modern AI systems are powerful pattern machines. But they’re missing the human layer—the one that reasons, weighs tradeoffs, and makes strategic decisions in context. Let’s break that down: 1. The Thinking Layer = Reasoning with Purpose This layer doesn’t just process inputs— it structures logic. It’s the ability to: Ask the right questions before acting Break down complexity into solvable parts Adjust direction mid-course when reality changes Think beyond “what was asked” to uncover “what really matters” Today’s AI responds. But it rarely reflects. Unless told exactly what to do, it won’t work through problems the way a strategist or operator would. 2. The Judgment Layer = Decision-Making in the Gray Judgment is the ability to: Prioritize what matters most Choose between imperfect options Make decisions when there’s no clear answer Apply values, experience, and vision—not just data It’s why a founder might not pursue a lucrative deal. Why a marketer might ignore the click-through rate. Why a strategist knows when the timing isn’t right. AI doesn’t do this well. Not yet. Because judgment requires more than data—it requires discernment . Why This Is the Bottleneck Holding Back AI AI can write. It can summarize. It can automate. But it still can’t: Diagnose the real problem behind the question Evaluate tradeoffs like a founder or operator would Recommend a path based on context, constraints, and conviction AI today is still reactive. It follows instructions. But it doesn’t lead. It doesn’t guide. It doesn’t own the outcome. And for those building serious systems—whether you’re running a company, launching a platform, or leading a team—this is the wall you eventually hit. That’s Why We Built Thinking OS™ We stopped waiting for AI to learn judgment on its own. Instead, we created a system that embeds it—by design. Thinking OS™ is an installable decision layer that captures how top founders, strategists, and operators think… …and makes that thinking repeatable , scalable , and usable inside teams, tools, and platforms. It’s not a framework. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not another playbook. It’s the layer that knows how to: Think through complex decisions Apply judgment when rules don’t help Guide others —human or AI—toward strategic outcomes This Is the Missing Infrastructure Thinking OS™ isn’t just about better answers. It’s about better thinking—made operational. And that’s what’s been missing in AI, consulting, leadership development, and platform design. If you’re trying to scale expertise, install judgment, or move from tactical to strategic… You don’t need a faster AI. You need a thinking layer that knows what to do—and why. We built it. Let’s talk.
More Posts