The $b$-symbol metric is a generalization of the Hamming metric. Linear codes, in the $b$-symbol metric, have been used in the read channel whose outputs consist of $b$ consecutive symbols. The Griesmer bound outperforms the Singleton bound for $\mathbb{F}_q$-linear codes in the Hamming metric, when $q$ is fixed and the length is large enough. This scenario is also applicable in the $b$-symbol metric. Shi, Zhu, and Helleseth recently made a conjecture on cyclic codes in the $b$-symbol metric. In this paper, we present the $b$-symbol Griesmer bound for linear codes by concatenating linear codes and simplex codes. Based on cyclic codes and extended cyclic codes, we propose two families of distance-optimal linear codes with respect to the $b$-symbol Griesmer bound.