Location pages
Local landing pages — what makes one useful instead of spam?
A local landing page has one job: help someone in that place decide whether your business is relevant to them. Everything that serves that job belongs on the page. Everything else — history, population counts, landmark lists — is padding dressed up as SEO.
What belongs on the page
Useful content
- The services genuinely available to someone in that area — not your full list regardless of relevance.
- Projects actually completed nearby, with real detail about what was done.
- Testimonials from customers in or near that area, used honestly rather than picked at random.
- Realistic travel and coverage information — how far you'll come, typical response times, any limits.
- FAQs that reflect real local considerations — parking, access, property types, permits, seasonal demand.
- A clear, working way to make contact, without extra friction for having landed on a location page.
- Links to the specific service pages most relevant to that area's typical work.
What doesn't
Leave these out entirely
- Local history — when the town was founded, who it's named after.
- Population statistics and other trivia lifted from a reference site.
- Lists of landmarks with no connection to the business.
- Paragraphs that exist mainly to repeat the town name several times.
- Content copied from another location page with only the place name swapped.
Weak vs. useful
Same page, two very different approaches.
| Weak — padding | Useful — specific |
|---|---|
| “Sutton Coldfield is a historic market town in the West Midlands with a population of around 110,000. Known for its Royal Town status and beautiful park, Sutton Coldfield is a great place to live. If you need a decorator in Sutton Coldfield, look no further.” | “We're based in Sutton Coldfield and cover interior and exterior decorating across the town, including recent work in Four Oaks and Mere Green. Most jobs here are period and semi-detached properties, which usually means careful prep on original plasterwork — something we quote for properly rather than guessing on the day.” |
| Weak — padding | Useful — specific |
|---|---|
| “Looking for the best painter in Birmingham? Our expert team of painters serves all of Birmingham with top-quality painting services you can trust. Contact Birmingham's leading painting company today!” | “We travel into Birmingham for larger commercial and multi-room domestic jobs, usually where there's decent parking or loading access — city-centre flats and terraces without off-street parking can add time and cost, so we'll flag that at quote stage.” |
Before you publish
A practical location-page checklist.
- Does this page name at least one genuine, specific piece of local proof (a project, a testimonial, a real detail)?
- Could someone reading it tell this business actually works in this area, rather than just wanting to rank for it?
- Does it link to the one or two most relevant service pages, not the entire service list?
- Is the travel/coverage information accurate and realistic, not aspirational?
- Have you avoided history, population figures and landmark lists entirely?
- Is there a working, low-friction way to make contact from this page?
- If you removed the town name, would the page still read as generic — and if so, has it actually said anything useful?
How many to build
As many as you can genuinely maintain.
The right number of location pages is set by how many you can keep genuinely useful, not by how many towns are within reach. A page written once and left to go stale — old projects, outdated coverage claims — does more harm than not having it.
For most small service businesses that's a small number, built where the checklist above can honestly be ticked, and revisited as new projects and reviews come in.
For the bigger architecture question, see service-area SEO and service pages vs. location pages, or the local picture as a whole on local SEO.
Before you ask
Local landing page questions, answered plainly.
Deciding whether to build one at all? Start with service-area SEO.
Next step
Got location pages that read like padding?
Let's find out what they're missing.
Send us the links. We'll tell you honestly which are earning their place and which need real content behind them.