On-page SEO is the process of optimizing a site’s content for search engine visibility.
Depending on your business objective, you may or may not want to focus more on one of these areas over the other two. For example, if your goal is advertising revenue through AdSense ads, then you will need to focus more on number 1 and 3 (quality content and proper HTML coding).
This can include things like meta descriptions, keywords, page titles, headings, ALT text and more. By doing this properly you will make it easier for Google to know what your website is about making them more likely to show it in search results somewhere higher up on their list.
So rather than promising someone they are #1 locally you are actually promising they are #5 nationally- which would be better if only people could rank that high all the time!
The unfortunate truth is that by purely relying on the LOCAL ranking the business owner has given up on any chance of higher rankings elsewhere online – preventing customers from finding them without first knowing.