With all due respect.....
I have done NONE of those things you describe, yet my site is #1 in nearly all of my key words, such as "Sacramento DJs" and "Sacramento Wedding DJs" with or without the word "California"
My number one position was achieved with the following:
1) Google Maps (see below about how the reviews at UGCs play a part in this).
2) tightly written Metas (Title, Content/Description, Key Words). Its hard to write a good Meta without being "spammy" in the process
3) Content, content, content! Did I say CONTENT! I would not be "content" if I did not mention Content on all of the pages, and the keyword density has to be pitch-perfect. Too may repetitions and you are spamming, too little of the key words and you lose SERP ranking.
4) Good old fashioned LINKS IN from highly RELEVANT sites. In my case, a site called "WE DJ" (wedj.com) -- looks like "WeDJie", so I like to call it WeDJie World. I have literally hundreds of inbound links from that site alone, which is a PR-5. It also helps that I'm listed in DMOZ, Music Moz, and every major music-related directory.
5) online REVIEWS....at the following places: Yelp, City Search, Insider Pages, Merchant Circle, and City Voter. I've got free listings at every one of those places.
Lately, I've noticed that Google Maps is using the City Voter Reviews as a basis for their ranking of businesses in assigning the coveted "Slot 1A"...this is probably an entire thread subject so I'll stop here...