You've probably heard the advice: "Create pages for each service in each city you serve." So you made 50 pages—"Plumbing in Springfield," "Plumbing in Shelbyville," "Plumbing in Capital City"—and waited for the leads to roll in.

But nothing happened. Or worse, your rankings actually dropped.

This is one of the most common problems we see with local service businesses. The strategy isn't wrong in principle, but the execution usually is. Here's what's actually going wrong.

What's really going wrong

Most service + location pages fail for one of three reasons:

1. They're basically identical

If your "AC Repair in Austin" page is the same as your "AC Repair in Round Rock" page with just the city name swapped out, search engines notice. They see it as duplicate content—or at best, thin content that doesn't deserve to rank.

2. They don't provide real value

A page that just says "We offer plumbing services in [City]. Call us today!" isn't helpful to anyone. There's no reason for someone to stay on that page, and no reason for Google to rank it.

3. There are too many of them

If you serve 3 cities, having 3 location pages makes sense. If you've created 200 pages for every zip code in a 100-mile radius, you've probably created a mess that dilutes your site's authority and confuses search engines about what you actually do.

A simpler way to think about it

Instead of asking "How many location pages can I create?", ask: "What would actually help someone searching for this service in this area?"

A good service + location page should answer:

  • What specific services do you offer in this area?
  • What's different about serving this area? (Travel considerations, local regulations, common issues)
  • What should someone expect when they hire you?
  • How do they get in touch?

If you can't answer these questions differently for each location, you probably don't need separate pages for each location.

How we typically approach this with clients

When we work with local service businesses, here's the typical approach:

Start with your core service pages

Before worrying about locations, make sure you have solid pages for each major service you offer. These are often more important than location pages.

Identify your real service areas

Where do you actually do most of your work? Where do your best customers come from? Focus on those areas first.

Create location pages only where they make sense

If you have a physical presence, specific experience, or genuine local knowledge in an area, a location page can work. If you're just trying to rank for a city name, it probably won't.

Make each page genuinely useful

Include local details, specific services available in that area, relevant case studies or examples, and clear contact information. Each page should stand on its own as helpful content.

What you can do yourself

If you already have location pages that aren't working:

  • Audit what you have: How many location pages do you have? Are they mostly identical?
  • Consolidate if needed: It's often better to have 5 strong location pages than 50 weak ones
  • Add real content: Local details, specific examples, genuine information about serving that area
  • Check your analytics: Which location pages (if any) are actually getting traffic and leads?

Sometimes the best fix is to remove most of your location pages and focus on making a few really good ones.