"Plumber in [City]" pages are tempting. Make one for every town nearby, swap the city name, and wait for calls. The problem: Google calls that kind of page a doorway page, and its spam policies are clear that it doesn't want them.
Done right, city pages can help. Done wrong, they can drag down your whole site.
#What a bad city page looks like
- The same text as every other city page, with only the name changed
- A list of keywords and nearby towns
- No real reason to exist except to rank
- Cities the business doesn't actually serve
#What a good city page looks like
A good page has information that's only true about that city:
- Jobs you've done there, with photos (with the customer's permission)
- Reviews from customers in that city
- Local details that matter for the job: older homes in certain neighborhoods, hard water, storm season, local permit rules
- Which services you offer there, and how fast you can get there
- A team member or crew that covers that area
#Build fewer, better pages
Ten strong pages for the cities you really serve beat fifty thin ones. Start with the cities where you already do the most work and have reviews.
#When not to build one
- You don't really serve that city
- You have nothing specific to say about it
- You'd only be changing the name
In those cases, list the city in your Google profile service areas and on a general "areas we serve" page instead.
#Link them sensibly
Link each city page from an "Areas we serve" page and from relevant service pages. Don't put fifty city links in your footer.
On the Pro plan we write a new service or location page every month, with real local detail, not swapped names.