Area Pages: How to Rank in Towns You Are Not Based In

You are based in one town but you work in six. On Google, you probably only show up in the one. Area pages are how you fix that.

What an area page is

A page on your website about your service in a specific place: "Electrician in Altrincham", "Roof repairs in Chorley". When someone in that town searches for your trade, Google has a page that matches both the job and the location.

What they can and cannot do

There are two sets of results for a local search: the map at the top and the normal listings underneath.

• The normal listings are where area pages work best. A good page can rank in a town you have never had an office in.
• The map is tied closely to where your business is actually located. You can set service areas on your Google Business Profile, and you should, but it is hard to beat firms that are physically based in the town being searched. Area pages help a little here. They are not magic.

So area pages will not put a Manchester firm at the top of the map in Liverpool. They can win you a steady flow of work from the towns around you.

What makes a good one

The test is simple: would this page be useful to someone in that town? A good area page includes:

• The work you do there, in specifics. The kinds of jobs you get called to in that area.
• Local detail that is true. The types of houses, common problems you see, estates and neighbourhoods you cover.
• Real jobs. A photo and two lines about work you have done in that town is worth more than five paragraphs of filler.
• Reviews from customers in that area, if you have them.
• How quickly you can get there and how to book.

The mistake almost everyone makes

Writing one page and copying it thirty times with the town name changed. Google calls these doorway pages and its guidelines are clear that it does not want them. At best they are ignored. At worst they drag the rest of your site down.

Ten genuinely different pages for towns you really work in will beat a hundred copies.

Which towns to pick

• Start with the places you already get work from.
• Add the towns you would like more from.
• Stay within the distance you would actually travel for an average job.
• Do not bother with tiny villages. Cover them from the nearest town's page.

Build them over time

You do not need them all at once. One or two new area pages a month, each done properly, adds up quickly. That steady build is part of the local SEO work we do for every customer.