So you want to beat your local competition in the search engines, well beating local competition in the search engines can sometimes be simple task. Step one type the keyword your are trying to beat the competition for into Google. Then take the top website in the results , and find the sites that are linking to it using a back link tool such as the one found at www.domain-pop.com . Once you have a list of sites that link to that site set about contacting the webmasters of those sites to see if they would be interested in linking to site also. One other little trick I've found good to get in the results for your keywords , is sometimes when you type keywords into search engines you will notice some of the top results are directories , so I'd recommend listing your self in these directories as it gets you in the results even if it's just in a directory. The good thing is with this is directories get indexed fast so the benefits are quicker. So try these things quick tips should help you beat the local competition.
Getting the same sites/directories to link to you is part of it, but you also have to add unique content. You also need on page seo like check your title tag, h1 tags, alt tags, etc.