27 October 2026

Quick answer Create a location page only for an area you genuinely serve, and give each one unique, useful content: real projects, local details, reviews, answers to local questions and a clear way to get in touch. Pages that only swap the town name are doorway pages, which Google treats as spam and which rarely rank. Last updated: October 2026 If you serve several towns, location pages can win you searches such as “electrician in Leeds” or “accountant in Cardiff”. They are also one of the easiest places to go wrong. Many agencies generate dozens of pages with the same text and a different place name, and then wonder why none of them rank. Google calls pages made mainly to rank for a place and funnel visitors onwards “doorway pages”, and its spam policies explicitly target them. The good news is that genuinely useful location pages are completely acceptable, and often perform very well. This guide shows what separates the two, what a strong service area page contains, how many you actually need, how to structure them, and how to measure and improve them over time. In this guide What a doorway page looks like When a location page is justified What a good location page contains How many pages do you really need? A worked example: an electrician serving three towns Structure, internal links and schema Writing unique content at scale Measuring and improving location pages A quick quality checklist FAQs What a doorway page looks like Doorway pages exist to capture search traffic for a place or phrase, offering little unique value of their own. Typical signs include near-identical copy with the town name swapped, dozens of pages for areas you do not really serve, vague text that could apply to anywhere, and links that simply push visitors to one page. Google has been clear that this kind of scaling is spam. At best the pages get ignored. At worst they drag down the quality signals of the whole site. The test is simple: would a person in that town find the page genuinely useful, and could it only have been written by someone who serves that area? When a location page is justified A location page makes sense when you have a real presence or real customers in that area, when people there search for your service with the place name, and when you can say something genuinely specific. That might be a branch, regular service visits, local projects or local knowledge that affects the service. If you cannot meet that bar, do not create the page. Mention the area on a broader page, or add it to a service area list, instead of publishing something thin. What a good location page contains A clear statement of the service and the area you cover, with the main service in the heading. Local proof such as reviews, short case studies or photos from real jobs in that area. Information only an operator would know: typical property types, local regulations, travel times, common problems in the area. A map or service-area description, address if you have one, and prominent phone, form or booking options. FAQs answering questions people in that area genuinely ask. Links to the relevant service page and to nearby location pages. How many pages do you really need? Start with your core areas: the towns where you have the most customers or the greatest opportunity. Build those well, measure results, and expand only when you can add genuine content. A tightly built hub with a smaller number of strong city pages usually beats a sprawling set of hundreds of thin ones. For multi-service businesses, avoid multiplying services by locations into thousands of pages. Prioritise the combinations that actually produce work, such as your top three services in your top five areas. A worked example: an electrician serving three towns Imagine a Leeds-based electrician who also works in Harrogate and Wakefield. A weak approach is to copy the Leeds page and replace the name. A strong approach starts with what is different in each place. In Harrogate, many customers may live in older period homes where rewiring and fuse board upgrades are common. In Wakefield, a higher share of work might be landlord safety certificates and new-build snagging. The Harrogate page can feature a recent rewire with a photo, a short customer quote and a note about typical timescales and access in older properties. The Wakefield page can focus on EICR certificates, landlord obligations and quick turnaround. Both link to the main electrical services page, display the same trusted contact details, and carry FAQs reflecting each local audience. Because each page carries information that only exists for that area, it satisfies the searcher and gives Google a reason to rank it. It is also easier to maintain: when a new job is completed in Harrogate, you add a photo and a review to that page rather than rewriting a template. This same approach works for accountants, solicitors, dentists, cleaners and almost any service business. Start from what is genuinely different about the customers and the work in each place, and let the page grow from there. Structure, internal links and schema Use a hub page that lists all the areas you cover and links to each location page, such as our own locations hub. Link each location page back to the matching service page and across to neighbouring areas where it makes sense for the reader. Add LocalBusiness or Service schema that reflects your real service area, and make sure your name, address and phone are consistent with your Google Business Profile. If you have a physical branch, give that location its own page with its own address, opening hours and map. Keep URLs clean and predictable, for example /locations/leeds/, and make sure each page has a unique title tag and meta description that mentions the service and place naturally. Writing unique content at scale Uniqueness does not need to mean writing from scratch every time.