--- title: "San Francisco Web Design, Website Development and SEO" description: "SEO, web design, AI search and Google Ads for businesses in San Francisco, on the Peninsula and in Marin, planned neighborhood by neighborhood." url: https://kihanmarketing.com/locations/san-francisco/ published: 2026-09-30 updated: 2026-10-21 --- # San Francisco Web Design, Website Development and SEO Plus AI search and Google Ads from the Richmond District to San Rafael Kihan Marketing is a digital marketing agency. We offer SEO, website design and development, AI search, Google and Meta Ads, local search and social media to businesses in San Francisco, down the Peninsula and across the Golden Gate in Marin. Med spas, healthcare practices and property managers are our specialties. In San Francisco, a neighborhood name can send a search to Southern California. We help businesses in the city, on the Peninsula and in Marin get found for the place a customer actually means, on Google and in AI answers. We work remotely, in accounts you own. ## SEO services for San Francisco businesses Most [SEO](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/seo/) work for a San Francisco business comes down to pages: one for each service you offer and one for each place you serve. We also do the work under those pages: technical SEO, schema markup, content and link building. A bare neighborhood name is a trap here. Type "med spa marina" into Google and the first suggestion is Marina del Rey. "Med spa mission" brings up Mission Valley and Mission Viejo. So a page title says "Marina District, San Francisco", not just "Marina". The same goes for towns. For "roofer san francisco", Google also suggests South San Francisco, which is a separate city in San Mateo County. A roofer who works there gives it a page of its own. - Technical SEO and site audits - Schema markup - Content that answers real questions - Link building - Pages for each neighborhood and town you serve - Search Console set up in your name ## Website design and development in San Francisco We design and build [websites](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/web-development/) on WordPress or Next.js, with custom code where a site needs it. Redesigns, speed work and upkeep of a live site are part of the work too. Website accessibility has a San Francisco chapter. In 2006 a federal judge in San Francisco let the National Federation of the Blind’s suit over Target.com go forward. The claim could proceed where the site got in the way of blind shoppers’ full and equal enjoyment of what Target’s stores offered. The opinion explains how blind shoppers rely on alternative text, screen readers and keyboard navigation. Those are still the things our [ADA compliance](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/web-development/#ada-compliance) work checks. We test a site against WCAG 2.2 at level AA, whoever built it, fix what fails, and test again with a keyboard and a screen reader. We use no overlay widgets, and it is technical work, not legal advice. - New websites and redesigns - WordPress development - Next.js, React and custom code - ADA compliance (WCAG 2.2 AA) - Speed work and maintenance ## Websites and results we are proud of ### Apartment community A community website we revamped for an apartment management company. - Industry: Apartment community - Services: Website revamp [View the project](https://kihanmarketing.com/projects/summit-vista-apartments-port-orchard/) ### Cryotherapy studio Moved to a new website with its own booking page. Google Ads click-through rate went from 0.13 percent in Q4 2023 to 4.64 percent in Q3 2026. - Industry: Med spa and wellness - Services: Website, SEO, Google Ads, Meta ads [View the project](https://kihanmarketing.com/projects/cryo-sanctuary/) ### Roofing company Single location SEO grown into a site of more than 250 pages. It covers more than 40 towns and neighborhoods in Central Texas and has a roofing video library, the Knowledge Center, inside it. - Industry: Roofing - Services: SEO, Website build, AI citation [View the project](https://kihanmarketing.com/projects/driftwood-builders-roofing/) ### Island real estate agency Social media and SEO for an island real estate agency. - Industry: Real estate - Services: Social media, SEO [View the project](https://kihanmarketing.com/projects/island-dreams-realty/) ## AI search, ads, local and social in San Francisco ### AI search We work to get your business named in Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. That work is called answer engine optimization (AEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO). Google lists no extra steps for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Any page in its index that qualifies for a snippet can be picked, and Google suggests checking that the Business Profile is up to date. The rest is plain answers to what people here ask. Does the Rent Ordinance cover a flat in an older building? Will the roofer handle Planning sign-off on a landmark? Does a Mill Valley business also serve Strawberry and Marin City, which have no city government of their own? ### Google and Meta Ads We run pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on [Google Ads](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/paid-ads/), and paid social on Facebook and Instagram. We can build TikTok and LinkedIn campaigns when they fit. In 2025 San Francisco’s visitors outnumbered its roughly 826,000 residents many times over. On Google’s default setting, a Noe Valley med spa’s ads can reach people far away who have only shown interest in the city. Presence, the setting we use for local work, limits them to people located, or regularly located, in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin. Renting is far less common outside the city: about 35 percent of Marin households rent, and about 42 percent in San Mateo County. So a leasing office weights its budget toward the city, and a roofer toward the Peninsula and Marin, each county in its own campaign. ### Local SEO We handle [local SEO](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/local-seo/) and the Google Business Profile itself: categories, services, hours, photos and a weekly review process. Google’s own example of a correct business name is a coffee shop in downtown San Francisco. The rule behind it is to use the name customers know from your storefront and website, with nothing added. Extra words in the name can get a profile suspended, so the neighborhood goes in the pages, not the name. A city business that also works on the Peninsula or in Marin lists those places as service areas instead. A profile can hold up to 20, and Google asks that the whole area stay within about two hours’ drive of the base. ### Social media We manage [social media](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/social-media/) and plan it around the San Francisco calendar. Fleet Week comes in October and the Chinese New Year Parade in February. Carnaval runs in the Mission District at the end of May, and Pride follows in late June. April 18 and October 17 mark the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. Both dates suit seismic safety posts for landlords and homeowners. Our [brand design](https://kihanmarketing.com/services/brand-design/) work gives those posts one look: the logo, identity and guidelines, plus templates your team can reuse from Fleet Week to Pride. ## How San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin split local search Water and one county line split this market three ways: the city, the Peninsula and Marin. This page covers the City and County of San Francisco, San Mateo County down the Peninsula, and Marin across the Golden Gate. The city and the county are one government inside one boundary. 1. **Three sides are water.** On the mainland, San Francisco borders only San Mateo County. Interstate 280 runs south through Daly City, linking the city with San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. Marin is reached over the Golden Gate Bridge, which carries about 40 million vehicles a year. Google weighs distance in local results, so Marin and the Peninsula are separate local markets from the city. 2. **Same name, different place.** South San Francisco is its own city of about 65,000 people. The Richmond District is part of San Francisco, but the City of Richmond lies across the bay in Contra Costa County. Google’s suggestions for "roofer richmond" point to Virginia, Kentucky and Texas, so a page names the Richmond District of San Francisco. 3. **Communities without a city.** About one Marin resident in four lives outside any city or town, more people than live in San Rafael. Tamalpais-Homestead Valley and Strawberry sit near Mill Valley without a city government. On the Peninsula, North Fair Oaks is unincorporated land between Redwood City, Atherton and Menlo Park. A list of cities alone misses all of them. ### San Francisco in numbers - **80%** of the City and County of San Francisco’s total area is water, by the Census Bureau’s measure - **45%** of San Francisco’s homes were built before 1940, against about 12 percent nationwide - **62%** of San Francisco households rent their home; across the wider metro, fewer than half do - **23.7M** visitors came to San Francisco in 2025, by San Francisco Travel’s count ## Rules for med spas, roofers, landlords and agents in San Francisco San Francisco writes many of its own rules on top of California’s. The cards below cover a state permit behind a practice’s brand name, the city’s permits for permanent makeup and reroofs, its rent law, and the state’s seismic disclosure for home sales. ### Med spa and healthcare SEO We run SEO, Google Ads and booking pages for San Francisco med spas under their permitted name, and credit the city-licensed artist on microblading pages. A physician who advertises a practice under any name other than their own needs a fictitious-name permit, unless an exception applies, such as practice at a licensed clinic. Under section 2415 the permit is issued only for a name that is not "deceptive, misleading, or confusing". So the brand on the website, the Business Profile and the ads should match the permitted name. Permanent makeup needs city paperwork. San Francisco licenses each tattoo, body piercing and permanent cosmetics practitioner, and the location needs its own body art establishment permit. A spa that sells microblading can name the licensed artist on the treatment page. - California rules: B&P Code 2285 and 2415 - City license: Body art practitioner, Environmental Health - Services: Med spa SEO, Google Ads, booking pages [Med spa marketing](https://kihanmarketing.com/med-spa-marketing/) ### Roofing For San Francisco roofers, we write permit pages alongside roofing SEO and Google Ads, and get repair pages live before the October rains. San Francisco requires a permit before roofing is installed, repaired or removed, with some exemptions in its Building Code. Only a licensed C-39 roofer can apply online, and only for work that needs no plans and replaces no framing or decking. A landmark building also needs Planning sign-off and photos of the existing roof. A roofer’s permit page can answer three questions in order: who applies, whether the job can be filed online, and what a landmark building adds. Rain comes in one season. By NOAA’s normals, about 95 percent of downtown’s rain falls from October through April. On December 31, 2022, downtown recorded 5.46 inches of rain, a daily record and a December record. Repair and gutter pages belong live before October. The city’s Better Roofs rules cover most new buildings of 10 occupied floors or fewer. Each must put solar on 15 percent of the roof, a living roof on 30 percent, or a mix of the two. A roofer who installs either can give it a page aimed at builders. - City permit: Reroofing permit, Building Inspection - New buildings: Better Roofs, Zoning Administrator Bulletin 11 - Services: Roofing SEO, permit pages, Google Ads [Roofing marketing](https://kihanmarketing.com/roofing-marketing/) ### Property management We build San Francisco property manager websites around the Rent Ordinance, so owner pages make no promise of rents set by software. Many San Francisco units built on or before June 13, 1979 have both rent control and eviction protection. Newer units, and most single-family homes and condos with tenancies from 1996 on, can have eviction protection without rent control. For rent-controlled units, the allowed annual increase from March 1, 2026 is 1.6 percent. Before an annual increase, a landlord needs a rent increase license. It comes from reporting to the Rent Board’s Housing Inventory, due March 1 each year. The filing names the owner, or the property manager who handles habitability issues, and it is public. The Rent Ordinance bars landlords from setting rents or occupancy with software that analyzes competitors’ non-public rental data. So a manager’s owner pages should not promise rents set by that kind of software. A short-term rental must be the host’s own home, with only one unit in a multi-unit building, and each listing shows the city’s certificate or pending record number. So a listing should not sell a condo on its short-term rental income. - City rule: San Francisco Rent Ordinance - Allowed increase: 1.6% through February 28, 2027 - Our build: Property manager’s website [Property management marketing](https://kihanmarketing.com/property-management-marketing/) ### Real estate Agents and brokerages in San Francisco and Marin get area pages, listing pages and buyer guides from us that never undercut the state’s seismic hazard disclosure. California’s seismic hazard disclosure applies to a property inside a state-mapped seismic hazard zone. The seller’s agent, or a seller acting alone, must tell buyers once they know of the zone or once the local map notice is posted. The zones mark ground prone to liquefaction or to landslides in an earthquake. Listing copy should never undercut that disclosure. After the 1989 earthquake, USGS found nearly all of the Marina District’s damage within about 0.75 square kilometers by the bay, so copy for a Marina home never calls it "earthquake-proof". Area pages cover places such as Noe Valley or Mill Valley, and each listing’s posts and ads send buyers to them. - California rule: Public Resources Code 2694 - Our client: Real estate agency - Result: Clicks 1,545 to 2,478, July to September 2026 against 2025 [See the real estate project](https://kihanmarketing.com/projects/island-dreams-realty/) Agent and brokerage work is on the [real estate marketing](https://kihanmarketing.com/real-estate-marketing/) page, while the [portfolio](https://kihanmarketing.com/portfolio/) covers the rest of our work, industry by industry. ## Who does the work **Kiran Dasgupta**, Founder and Lead Strategist. Kiran Dasgupta founded Kihan Marketing and leads every engagement. He writes about SEO, AI search, property management marketing and choosing an agency. - [Kiran Dasgupta](https://kihanmarketing.com/kiran/): Founder and Lead Strategist - [Hannah Pepito](https://kihanmarketing.com/hannah/): Co-founder and Project Manager - [Shahzad Farooq](https://kihanmarketing.com/shahzad/): Co-founder and Senior Web Developer - [Najma Khan](https://kihanmarketing.com/najma/): Graphic Designer - [Atisam Elahi](https://kihanmarketing.com/atisam/): SEO Strategist - [Ifrah Shah](https://kihanmarketing.com/ifrah/): Social Media Expert ## How to choose the best digital marketing agency in San Francisco Every agency on your shortlist for search, a website or paid ads should face the same five questions, and that includes us. Good answers name San Mateo and Marin towns, not just the city. 1. **Ask who owns the accounts.** Your Google Ads, Business Profile, analytics and domain should stay in your name, whoever runs them. 2. **Ask a San Francisco rules question.** A property management agency should know what the Housing Inventory filing is for. A roofing agency should know when a reroof needs Planning sign-off. 3. **Ask how they would name places.** Listen for "Marina District, San Francisco" rather than "Marina", and for Marin’s unincorporated communities as well as its cities. 4. **Ask which searchers the ads reach.** With so many visitors in town, the location setting matters. Ask whether campaigns target people in your area or also people elsewhere who are interested in it. 5. **Ask what they would leave out.** An agency that knows the city keeps "earthquake-proof" out of listing copy and rent-setting software out of owner pages. ## Your San Francisco questions, answered ### Do you have an office in San Francisco? No. We work remotely, inside accounts you own: your Google Ads, your Business Profile, your Search Console and your website. Every change is visible to you. ### Do you work on the Peninsula and in Marin too? Yes. Distance counts in Google’s local results, so Daly City, San Mateo and San Rafael each need their own attention. Each place you serve gets its own page, a spot in your service areas and its own ad targeting. ### Can you make a San Francisco website ADA compliant? We can test it and fix it, whether or not we built it. We check it against WCAG 2.2 at level AA and fix what fails, such as color contrast, image descriptions, keyboard access, form labels and captions. Then we test it again with a keyboard and a screen reader. We do not use overlay widgets. It is technical work, not legal advice, and no one can promise a site will never be sued. ### Is my San Francisco apartment under rent control? It may be. Many units built on or before June 13, 1979 have both rent control and eviction protection. Newer units, and most single-family homes and condos with tenancies from 1996 on, may have eviction protection only. Some units without rent control are still covered by the state’s Tenant Protection Act. Coverage depends on the unit. This is not legal advice. ### Can a co-working desk in San Francisco have a Business Profile? Only if the office has clear signage, receives customers during business hours and is staffed by your own people during those hours. A virtual office, a mailing address where you do not work, cannot have a profile at all. ### What are AEO and GEO? Answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization: the work of getting your business named in Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity. In practice, your pages name the neighborhoods and towns you cover, such as the Richmond District or Redwood City, in words an assistant can quote, and your Business Profile stays current. ## Other city pages in the region - [San Jose, California](https://kihanmarketing.com/locations/san-jose/) - [Sacramento, California](https://kihanmarketing.com/locations/sacramento/) - [Fresno, California](https://kihanmarketing.com/locations/fresno/) - [Los Angeles, California](https://kihanmarketing.com/locations/los-angeles/) ## Got a project in San Francisco? Begin with a marketing audit of how you show up in search today, from the Richmond District to Redwood City and San Rafael. (425) 954-3452, info@kihanmarketing.com