Do You Need a Page for Every Town You Serve?
By Parker Gawryletz · Local Cochrane Web Design · Last updated: · 6 min read
You need a page for a town only if you can write something genuinely specific about working there. Location pages compete in the regular organic results, not the map pack, so they are how a business reaches towns it is not based in. Built as templates with the town name swapped, they become doorway pages and can hurt the whole site.
This is one of the most consequential decisions a local business makes about its website, and the advice online splits into two useless camps: build a page for every town, or never build them at all.
The honest answer is a quality threshold, not a number. Below is where the line sits, what Google actually says, and a test you can apply to any page in ten seconds.
The short answer
- Location pages help in organic results, not in the map pack.
- The test: delete the town name — is anything specific left?
- Google names city pages that funnel to one page as doorway abuse.
- Practitioners suggest capping city pages at roughly 10 to 15.
- One genuinely local page beats twenty templates every time.
What location pages can and cannot do
A location page will not get you into the map pack for a town you have no address in — that is governed by distance. What it can do is rank in the regular organic results underneath the map, which is a genuinely valuable position and entirely within your control.
Practitioners who test this are consistent: it is nearly impossible to enter the local pack for a city where you have no office, but ranking well in the organic results for surrounding cities is achievable. Those are two different competitions on the same screen.
This also explains why adding service areas to your Business Profile does not deliver the towns you hoped for — they are a map overlay, not a ranking lever. The mechanics are in Google Business Profile without a storefront.
Where Google draws the line
Google's spam policies define doorway abuse as sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries, and name multiple pages targeted at regions or cities that funnel users to one page as an example. That is a description of the template-and-swap approach.
Read that definition carefully, because it is narrower than the panic around it suggests. What Google objects to is pages that exist only to catch a query and push the visitor somewhere else. A page that genuinely serves someone in that town is not a doorway, even though it targets a town.
What makes a location page earn its place
A location page earns its place when it contains things only true of that town: named neighbourhoods, local conditions that change the work, projects completed there, permit or bylaw specifics, and a review from someone who lives there.
- ☐ A named neighbourhood, street, or landmark you have actually worked near
- ☐ A local condition that changes the job — chinook freeze-thaw cycles, wind exposure, older housing stock
- ☐ A real project reference from that community, at whatever detail the client permits
- ☐ A permit, bylaw, or municipal requirement specific to that jurisdiction
- ☐ A testimonial from a customer in that town, quoted verbatim
Aim for several of these on every page. Most businesses can genuinely clear that bar for the handful of towns where they actually work — and cannot clear it for the thirty they would like to claim. That gap is the whole answer.
A named local review is the easiest of these to obtain and the hardest to fake — how to get more Google reviews covers asking for them without breaking Google's rules.
So how many pages should you build?
Practitioner guidance suggests capping city pages at roughly 10 to 15. The more useful limit is the honest one: build a page for every town where you can clear the specificity bar, and stop at the first town where you cannot.
| Situation | Build a page? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You work there regularly and have projects to reference | Yes | You can write something only true of that town |
| You would happily drive there but have no work yet | Not yet | Nothing specific to say — revisit after the first job |
| It is inside your service radius but you have never been | No | It would be a template with a name swapped |
| It is beyond about two hours' drive | No | Outside the boundary Google sets for service areas |
Building fewer, better pages is also cheaper to maintain. Twenty thin pages need updating twenty times and earn nothing; six real ones stay accurate and keep working.
Build service pages before location pages
In annual practitioner surveys, having a dedicated page for each service you offer is rated the strongest factor in local organic results — ahead of location pages. If you must choose, one clear page per service beats a page per town.
The reason is intent. Someone searching for a specific service has told you exactly what they want, and a page built for that search answers it precisely. Someone searching a town name has told you only where they are.
The strongest structure combines both: a real page for every service, then location pages only for the towns you genuinely work in, each linking to the services you actually deliver there. That is the architecture behind our own areas we serve pages.
Frequently asked questions
Do location pages help me rank in the map pack?
No. Map pack placement is driven heavily by distance from the searcher and whether you have an address in that city. Location pages compete in the regular organic results below the map, which is a genuinely valuable position but a different one.
How many location pages is too many?
Practitioner guidance suggests capping city pages at roughly 10 to 15, but the real limit is quality. If you cannot write several things that are only true of a town, that page should not exist regardless of how many you already have.
What makes a location page a doorway page?
Google's spam policies describe doorway abuse as pages created to rank for similar queries, naming pages targeted at regions or cities that funnel users to one page. In practice, a template with the town name swapped and no local substance is the pattern being described.
Can I rank in a nearby city without an office there?
In organic results, yes, and that is where the opportunity is. Practitioners report it is nearly impossible to enter the local pack for a city you have no office in, while ranking well in the organic results for surrounding cities is achievable with genuinely local pages.
Should I build service pages or location pages first?
Service pages first. A dedicated page for each service is rated the strongest factor in local organic results, ahead of location pages. Once every service has a proper page, add location pages only for the towns where you genuinely work.
Sources
See our local SEO service — the monthly program that builds service and area pages to this standard — real local substance on every page, or we do not publish it.