City landing pages, also called local landing pages, are pages on your website that focus on one town or area. Think of 'plumber Haarlem' or 'removal company Alkmaar region'. They can help you get found in places where you do work, but don't have a branch.
But there's a big pitfall. Many businesses create dozens of pages with the same text and only a different place name. Google calls these doorway pages and sees them as an attempt to manipulate search results. They don't help you and can harm your whole site. In this article you'll learn how to do it properly.
When do you need city landing pages?
Local landing pages make sense if you genuinely work in several places and customers there search specifically with a place name. That's often the case for installers, cleaning companies, gardeners, repair services and hauliers.
- You visit customers at home or on site, in a service area bigger than your own town.
- People search for your service with a place name added.
- You have something specific to say about each place: projects, customers, travel time, local rules or conditions.
- Your Google Business Profile only covers the town where you're based.
Do you have one location and do customers come to you, as with a hairdresser or restaurant? Then you usually don't need pages per city. Focus on local SEO and your Google Business Profile instead.
What are doorway pages and why don't they work?
Doorway pages are pages that mainly exist to rank for a search term and then send the visitor on. Google names them explicitly in its spam policies. The classic example: fifty pages that are identical apart from the place name.
- They add nothing for the visitor. Someone from Zaandam reads exactly the same as someone from Hoorn.
- Google filters them out as duplicate content or ignores them.
- In the worst case, Google sees it as manipulation, which can hurt the visibility of your whole site.
- They make your site messy and hard to maintain.
The test is simple. Would you make this page if Google didn't exist? Does a customer from that place genuinely get something out of it? If the answer is no, skip it.
What makes a local landing page valuable?
A good city page contains information that only applies to that place. You don't need all of it, but you do need enough to make the page genuinely different from the rest.
- Projects or jobs you did in that place, with your own photos.
- Reviews from customers in that place, if you have them.
- Practical information: how quickly you can get there, whether you charge a call-out fee, which neighbourhoods or villages you cover.
- Local conditions that affect your work, such as old buildings in a town centre, parking, or soil and groundwater.
- A contact person or phone number and a clear next step.
- Answers to questions customers from that region often ask.
An example from our own work: for WitFix, an appliance repair service that works across the Netherlands, we built a service finder by appliance and location, with pages per service area for local searches. See the project on our work page.
Pages per city or per region?
You don't have to create a page for every village. A regional page is often stronger. A page 'Painter in the Alkmaar region' listing the places you cover, filled with real projects, is worth more than ten thin pages per village.
- Create a city page for places with lots of searches and where you genuinely do a lot of work.
- Create a regional page for smaller places in the surrounding area.
- Start small: five good pages beat fifty thin ones.
- Only expand once you have enough of your own content for a place.
How to structure a city landing page
A fixed structure helps, as long as the content differs per place. A layout that often works:
- A title with service and place, for example 'Roofer in Haarlem'.
- A short intro that shows you know the place.
- Your services in that place, with links to the general service pages.
- Projects and photos from that place.
- Reviews from local customers.
- Practical information about service area, travel time and rates.
- Frequently asked questions and a clear button to get in touch.
Link every city page from an overview page of your service area, and from the city page back to your service pages. That keeps the structure clear for visitors and for Google.
How do you measure whether your city pages deliver?
A city page is only a success if it brings in visitors and enquiries from that place. So take a critical look at the figures after a few months.
- Check in Google Search Console which searches each city page appears for and how often it gets clicked.
- Measure in Google Analytics whether visitors to that page get in touch or request a quote.
- Ask new customers how they found you.
- Is a page still getting no impressions after a long time? Add more local content, merge it with a regional page or remove it with a redirect.
That way you only keep the pages that really work, and your website stays clear.
Common mistakes with regional pages
- Copying the same text and only swapping the place name.
- Having text generated automatically without adding real local information.
- Putting a list of a hundred place names in the footer.
- Creating pages for places you rarely go to in reality.
- Giving a fake address in a place where you don't have a branch.
- Creating the pages and then never updating them again.
Having local landing pages built
At Violexa we first help you decide which places are worth it. Then we build a setup where you can easily add projects, photos and reviews per place through the CMS. That can be part of a new custom website, from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT). If you'd like us to keep filling and improving the pages too, that's possible within our online marketing, from €599 excl. VAT (€725 incl. VAT) per month, cancellable monthly with one month's notice.
Wondering whether city pages make sense for your business? Book a free quickscan. In 30 minutes, online or on site, we discuss your service area and your website. You get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Are city pages bad for SEO?
Not if they contain real, local information. Pages that are identical apart from the place name are seen by Google as doorway pages. Those don't help and can harm your site. A few good pages with your own projects and reviews do work.
How many city pages should I create?
As many as you can fill with real content. Start with the places where you do the most work and where people search the most. For smaller places, a regional page often works better.
How do I get found in a city where I don't have a branch?
Create a good local landing page with projects, reviews and practical information about that place. Set your service area in your Google Business Profile. Never use a fake address, as that breaks Google's rules.
