Yes, when each one is a real page about that town, and no when it is the homepage with the town name swapped in twenty times. Google's guidance on "doorway pages" and thin content is aimed at exactly the second kind,1 and it works: those pages do not rank and can drag the rest of the site down.
A town page that counts has a job you did there with photos, a review from a customer there, the drive time from your shop, and the one or two things that are specific to that town. Built one a week, they are how a contractor shows up in the map and the results for the towns around the home base.
What goes on a town page that counts
- A headline that says the service and the town: "Furnace repair in Clifton Park, NY".
- A real job there, with two or three photos and a sentence about what it was.
- A review from that town, pulled from your Google profile, first name and town.
- The drive time from your shop and the same-day promise if it holds there.
- Something only true of that town: the housing stock (1960s ranches with original panels), the permit office and its quirks, the water hardness, the HOA that requires a certain shingle color. One paragraph is enough; it is what proves the page was written, not generated.
- The call bar and the price board, same as every page. See the first phone screen guide.
How many, and in what order
Start with the three or four towns where you already do the most work; you have the jobs and the reviews for those. Add one a week after that, following the dispatch map outward. A page with no real job behind it waits until there is one. On the Growth engine this is part of the weekly work, and the profile guide explains how the service area on the profile and the town pages reinforce each other.
What makes one junk
The same 400 words with the town name in six places. A list of fifty towns in the footer each linking to one of those. A "service area" page that is only a list. A town where you have never worked. Google's systems are good at spotting the pattern, and a homeowner is better: she can tell the page was not written for her street.
We serve 40 towns. Do we need 40 pages?
You need pages for the towns you want the map pack in, built as you earn the jobs there. The others are covered by the service area on your profile and a sentence on the homepage. Forty thin pages do less than eight real ones.
Can the town page be a section on the service page instead?
For a small area, yes: a service page with a "where we work" section naming the towns and a job in each. Separate pages earn their keep when a town has enough searches and you have enough work there to fill one honestly.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Spam policies: doorway abuse; Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
- Google Business Profile Help: How to improve your local ranking on Google.
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