How to "on page" seo a small local service business - particularly headers

[Webformix]

First off, let me apologize if this question is posted elsewhere, worded differently.  I've looked around quite a bit and have been unable to find the answer.

Basically, we are a small web design firm just getting our feet with with SEO.  Most of our clients, especially initially, will be quite small, local, service businesses.

For example:  and electrician, a pet sitter, a retail printing and map store, a surgeon etc.  Almost all of their sites will follow a basic "business card on the web" format...

Home Page - About Us - Testimonials - Rates - FAQ - Contact Us - Etc

So, from what I've read about on-page optimization, making sure my keywords are in the title, header, body, and meta description is one of the easiest and quickest things we can do for our clients.  This is a straightforward concept for me when applied to the homepage.  For example, take the local pet sitting business.  Her keywords are: Pet sitting, Dog walking, and the city we live in, Anytown USA.  So, I've used those keywords in all the appropriate places on the home page:

title: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA

header: Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA

first sentence of body:  We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA

meta description:  We are a professional Dog Walking and Pet Sitting Service in Anytown USA. At Business Name your furry friends become a part of our family.

So, my question is:

Do I also optimize the "about us" page? I've changed the title of all the pages to follow this format:

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc

Easy enough so far.  Also pretty easy for the meta description, and the body.  However, how would I add keywords to the header without making it look ridiculous?  We use wordpress with the genesis framework, and child themes from studiopress.  The header is always prominently visible at the top of the page.  Most people would expect to see the header be the same as the link they clicked on the nav bar:  for example, on the "about us" page, people expect the header to be: "about us"  Not: "dog walking and pet sitting in Anytown USA - About Us"

Do I just not worry about the headers on the other pages?  For that matter, I'd really like people to "land" on the home page, not any of the other pages, so should I not optimize them at all?  Does optimizing the rest of the pages help the home page to show up higher in the SERPS?  If I do end up optimizing the rest of the pages, should I use slightly different spellings of the keywords: like Dog walker instead of dog walking?  Or pet sitter instead of pet sitting?

I've repeatedly seen people talk about not using the same keywords on more than one page... but for most of these businesses there are really fairly few keywords.  There just isn't that many different ways that someone is going to search for an electrician, or a plumber, or a pet sitter.  By the second or third page that I optimize on one site, I imagine I'll start running out of different variations of the keywords.

I recognize that a lot of what we'll do that will be most helpful to local clients has nothing to do with on page optimization (setting up google places, google+, yahoo + bing local, etc).  I'd just like to make sure that I'm doing the on page stuff as perfectly as possible.

Thanks for your time and responses!

-Matt

p.s. while I'm at it, let me ask another question about domain names as well.  Right now the pet sitting client mentioned above is using:

www.petcare_Anytown_.com

After operating her business for the last year she realized she is much more interested in dog walking than pet sitting.  We are in the processes of redesigning the site, and when finished, are considering moving it to:

www.dogwalking_Anytown_.com

My assumption is that as long as we use permanent redirects from the old site to the new one, we shouldn't lose much SEO value.  Is this thinking correct?

On a related note though: another article I read mentioned that using a brand name in the domain may actually be more useful than the keyword rich domains above.  However,

www._businessname._com happens to already be taken by a pet sitting business at the other end of the country.  We could however use:

www.businessnameAnytown.com

Which one do you think would work better?  The keyword/location domain, or the businessname/location domain?  Thanks!

[MiriamEllis]

Matt,

Cody has given you some excellent replies. Just want to be sure this point hits home. Do not write your title tags like this:

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Home

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - About Us

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Rates

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - FAQ

Dog Walking and Pet Sitting in Anytown USA - Etc

These are nearly duplicates. Title tags appear as the first line in many search engine listings and should read in a manner that engages the user, as well as incorporating your keywords. Be sure you are writing a unique title, header and meta description for every page on the website.

Further, if you are planning to work with mainly local businesses, it will be critical that you understand not just traditional SEO best practices for on-page optimization, but also Local SEO best practices for on-page optimization. There are special opportunities and best practices both on-site and off for Local business that your website design firm will need to master in order to be helping clients achieve the visibility they will be hoping for.

[ollan]

Optimize for the visitor first, then the search engine. Make sure the titles and the headers read naturally. Everything that you put on the page should be relevant to the content of the page - that includes titles, headings, pictures, etc. If anything on your site sounds spammy or irrelevant, dump it and start over.

Be like Google and focus on providing the best user experience possible. The Google philosophy: "Focus on the user and all else will follow."

[Webformix]

Thanks for the response!  I realize now that I actually asked a few too many questions, and didn't do a terribly good job of separating them out clearly.

1.  Is this how I would optimize the titles?  I understand your answer.  Thank you.

2.  Do people expect the title tag to be the same as the menu option they click?  I'm afraid this isn't really the question I intended to ask.  I agree that people don't normally expect the title and menu option to match.  I'm actually pretty comfortable with the titles.  My concern is about the header.  When you click on "Rates" on the nav or menu bar, when you arrive at the page, what do you expect the H1 header to be?  Most people would expect it to be "Rates" not "Dog Walking Rates in Anytown", or "Dog Walking Testimonials in Anytown" etc.

3.  Should I not optimize the titles?  (Question should be:  Should I not optimize the headers?)  I understand that it's pretty easy to optimize the titles, and using your convention above makes sense.  Again, my bigger question is about the H1 header. Should I put keywords in the header of every page, or just the home page?

4. Should I not use the same keywords on every page?  My keywords do fall naturally into most of the pages body content.  Again, my biggest question I guess really has to do with the headers.  Assuming I do need to put keywords in the H1 header of the other pages, would I continue to use "dog walking" as my primary keyword, or would I need to come up with a variation that I haven't used in one of the other headers?

5.  Should I use a brand domain instead of a keyword domain?  Makes sense.  Thanks for the answer.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.  Sorry I didn't make the questions clearer from the start.

-Matt

p.s. I updated the title of the original post, when I realized that most of my questions are actually about the H1 Header.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

1.Is this how I would optimize the titles?

Each page should have a specific keyword group you are trying to target, minus the about us page.  In theory your pages would look more like this:

Rates: Dog Walking Rates in Anytown | Business Name

FAQ: Dog Walking FAQ's in Anytown | Business Name

Etc.

You would then want to link to those pages internally with the their main keywords, if possible.  So, you would like to the home page with "Dog Walking in Anytown."

2.  Do people expect the title tag to be the same as the menu option they click?

People don't really pay attention to the title tags at the top of their browser.  The only time I check is when I'm bouncing between pages.

3.Should I not optimized the titles?

You would create unique title tags for all the pages to just make sure that they were unique.  Duplicates can hinder your site.

4. Should I not use the same keywords on every page?

Search Engines look at the whole context of your site as well as individual pages.  You will want to use the keywords whenever they fall naturally into your text.  You can then link them internally to the page that is most relevant.

5.Should I use a brand domain instead of a keyword domain?

Depends.  Is the person an active blogger, and will they garner a bunch of links from the amazing content?  If yes, then go ahead with a brand.  If not, keep it simple with an exact match domain.