Local SEO content: the five page types a local site needs, the on-page details, and where it turns into a doorway

Local SEO content is the writing on your own website that proves to Google, and to the people searching, that you do a specific job in a specific place. For most local businesses it comes down to five page types: a strong home page, one page per service, one page per real location, project or job pages from the area, and a set of answers to the questions customers ask before they call. Each page needs the facts only you have: your address, the areas you cover, prices or price drivers, licences, photos you took, and work you did nearby. Pages that only swap a town name into the same text are not local content. Google calls that doorway abuse.

Why the website still matters when the map pack gets the clicks

Google's Business Profile help page on local ranking, read on 22 October 2026, says local results are "mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity". You cannot change distance. Your website is where you build the other two. Relevance grows when your pages describe the exact services people search for. Popularity grows partly from links and mentions, and the same Google page names "how many websites link to your business" as one of the signals. Nobody links to a thin page. People link to a useful one.

The site also feeds the ordinary results below the map, which many local searches show as well. A plumber who ranks in the map pack for "plumber near me" can still lose "water heater replacement cost" to a competitor with a better page on that exact job.

The five page types a local site needs

Page type	The search it answers	What makes it local
Home page	Your name, and "[service] in [town]"	Name, address, phone, area served and main services, all in text near the top
Service pages	"[service] near me", "[service] cost"	What the job involves here: local rules, typical homes or buildings, response times
Location pages	"[business type] in [place]"	The real address, hours, parking, staff and photos at that place
Project or job pages	Long, specific searches	A real job in a named area, with photos and what was done
Question pages or an FAQ	"how much", "do I need", "how long"	Answers that reflect your area's prices, permits and seasons

Service pages come first

Most local sites have one "Services" page with a list of ten things. Split it. A separate page for each main job gives each one a title, a heading and a body that match what people type. A roofer should have separate pages for repair, replacement, gutters and storm damage, because those are four different searches from four different people in four different moods.

A good service page answers: what the job is, signs you need it, what it usually costs and what changes the price, how long it takes, what the customer must do, what permits or licences apply, and how to book. Add your own photos of the work. If you publish prices, keep them current.

Location pages only where you have a real place

One page per physical location, with its own address, phone, hours, directions and photos taken there. Businesses that travel to customers, such as cleaners or electricians, can write area pages instead, but only for areas where they can say something true and specific. Our guide to SEO for a service-area business covers the profile rules and the pages that work without a public address. For a chain or franchise with many branches, see the guide to SEO for a business with many locations.

Project pages are the easiest local content to write well

Every finished job is a page waiting to be written. "Kitchen rewire in a 1960s house in [suburb]" with photos, the problem, the fix and the time it took is local, specific and impossible for a competitor to copy. Ask the customer before you name their street or show their home. Ten honest project pages do more than fifty area pages with swapped names.

Answers to the questions customers ask

Ask your front desk or your own phone log what people ask before they book. "Do I need a permit for a fence in [town]?" "How much does a boiler service cost?" "Do you work weekends?" Each good question becomes a short section on a service page or its own article if the answer is long. This is also the kind of text search features and AI assistants quote, because it states a fact in plain words.

The on-page details for local SEO

On-page local SEO is the set of details inside each page that makes the location clear. None of it is hard, and all of it is easy to get slightly wrong.

• Title tag and main heading. Name the service and the place in natural words: "Emergency plumber in Leeds" rather than a list of towns.
• Name, address and phone in text. Write them in HTML, not only inside an image or a map. Use the same format as your Business Profile.
• An embedded map on location pages, plus written directions and parking notes.
• Structured data. Google's LocalBusiness documentation lists the properties it reads, such as address, phone, opening hours and geo coordinates. A copyable example is in our note on LocalBusiness schema.
• Internal links. Link each service page to the relevant location or area pages and back. Link project pages to the service they show.
• Your own photos with descriptive file names and alt text, such as "replaced-roof-valley-headingley.jpg".
• A clear call to action on every page: a click-to-call phone number on mobile and a short booking form.

Where local content turns into a doorway

Google's spam policies define doorway abuse as pages "created to rank for specific, similar search queries" that lead users to pages that are less useful than the final destination. One of the examples Google gives is "multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page".

The classic local mistake is a page for every town within 30 miles, each with the same 400 words and a different place name. Run this test on any area page: if you deleted the town name, could a reader tell which town it was about? If not, the page has nothing local in it. Either add real substance, such as jobs done there, travel time, local building types or local rules, or remove the page and mention the area on a broader page instead.

For businesses where the neighbourhood is what matters most, our guide to hyperlocal SEO goes deeper on writing for small areas without crossing that line.

A content plan for the first three months

1. Month one: rewrite the home page and split services into separate pages, starting with the two jobs that earn the most.
2. Month two: write location or area pages only where you have real substance, and add structured data to each.
3. Month three: publish one project page per week and add the five questions your customers ask most to the right service pages.

After that, keep a simple rhythm: a project page for every notable job, a refresh of each service page once a year, and a check that prices, hours and staff names are still true. Measure progress in Search Console by the queries that include place names and services, and in your Business Profile by calls and direction requests.

Questions about local SEO content

How much content does a local business website need?

Enough to answer each main search properly. For a small business that is often a home page, five to ten service pages, a page per real location, and a steady flow of project pages. Quality per page matters more than the count.

Do local businesses need a blog?

Not a general blog. Project pages and answers to real customer questions do the job better, because they are specific to your services and your area. Call them a blog if you like, but write them as evidence of work.

What is local on-page SEO?

It is the set of details on each page that make the location clear: the service and place in the title and heading, your name, address and phone in text, a map, LocalBusiness structured data, and internal links between services and locations.

Can I write a page for every town I serve?

Only for towns where you can write something true and specific. A page that is the same as the others apart from the town name fits Google's description of doorway abuse. Fewer, better area pages are the safer and stronger choice.

Should local content repeat the city name many times?

No. Name the place where it reads naturally: the title, the heading, the address and the description of real jobs. Repeating it in every sentence makes the page worse for readers and does not help.

When a neighbour asks an assistant who to call

More people now type "who is a good roofer near me" into ChatGPT or Gemini instead of a search box. An assistant can only recommend a local business it can describe, and it describes you from the same facts this guide asks you to publish: the services, the areas, the prices, the jobs. Thin area pages give it nothing to say. Whether those assistants actually name your business for your best jobs is a separate thing to check, and AI Knows Us is built to read exactly that.