In the past when when a client want's to begin ranking for a specific geographic region, we first dial them in with a Google places account and verify their location. Next we make sure the name of the city is located on the homepage title tag, or on the Contact Us title tag and in the copy. In this case the name of the city is separated into 2 words "San Francisco" I have always spelled out the entire name of the city to be most effective, but the other SEO firm I'm dealing with only uses "Francisco" and removes the "San" in order to make room for other keywords. Who is correct here? Can you remove the "San" from San Francisco and be just as effective in geographical ranking?
I guess they could argue that anytime Google sees the word "Francisco" the first thing their bots assume is the city San Francisco. I personally would put the entire word in though. It just looks silly if you have a title tag or meta descriptions with just "Francisco".
Thanks sabasago! I always thought that Google associated the “San Francisco†with a location instead of someone's name “Franciscoâ€.