How many city pages should I have?

One for each town you genuinely serve and can say something specific about. Ten real pages beat fifty copied ones.

What is a doorway page?

A page made only to rank for a search that funnels people elsewhere, often a copy of another page with a town name swapped. Google treats them as spam.

How long should a service page be?

Long enough to answer what customers ask about that service. For most local services that is a few hundred words, with prices, timing and common questions.

Should I list prices on service pages?

If you can, yes, even as ranges. Price is the first question most customers have, and pages that answer it are more useful to people and to AI assistants.

How to write service and area pages that rank and get quoted by AI

Write one page for each service you want to be found for and one for each town you genuinely serve, open each page with a plain answer (what you do, where, how fast, what it costs), and fill it with details that are true for that service or place. Don't copy one page and swap the town name; Google treats those as doorway pages. Specific, useful pages are the ones Google ranks and AI assistants quote.

Updated September 28, 2026

Why do service and area pages matter?

Customers search for a service and a place: 'drain cleaning Round Rock', 'emergency vet Cedar Park', 'divorce lawyer Georgetown'. AI assistants get asked the same thing in a sentence: 'who does drain cleaning in Round Rock?'. Both look for a page that answers that exact question.

A home page that lists everything you do in one paragraph rarely wins that search. A page about drain cleaning, with Round Rock on it and real details, often does.

What goes on a service page?

Start with services. Make a page for each job you want more of, not every task you've ever done. A plumber might have drain cleaning, water heater repair, water heater replacement, leak repair and repiping. A clinic might have new patient exams, cleanings, whitening and emergency visits.

Open with the answer: 'We clean and clear clogged drains in homes across north Austin, usually same day. Most drain calls are $150 to $300.'
Say what's included and what isn't.
List the brands, types or cases you handle.
Explain how booking works and how soon you can come.
Answer the four or five questions customers ask on the phone about this service.
End with the next step: book, call, or ask a question.

How do you write an area page that isn't a doorway page?

Area pages are where most businesses go wrong. The lazy version is fifty pages that say 'We offer plumbing in [Town]' with nothing else changed. Google calls these doorway pages and says they break its spam policies. They also give an AI assistant nothing specific to quote.

A good area page has something true that only applies there. That might be how quickly you usually get to that town, the neighborhoods or zip codes you cover, local details that affect the work (older homes with galvanized pipe, hard water, slab foundations), the permits or rules that apply, or the jobs you do most often there. If you can't write anything specific about a town, you probably don't need a page for it yet.

How do you write so AI assistants quote you?

Assistants lift short, direct statements. Help them.

Put the plain answer in the first two sentences.
Use the words customers use, not trade jargon.
Give real numbers where you can: price ranges, response times, hours.
Use questions as headings, like 'Do you service Round Rock?', and answer right below.
Keep your business name, phone and service area identical to your Google profile.

How do you keep them current?

A page that says $89 when you now charge $129 costs you trust with the customer and with Google. Put a reminder on the calendar to reread your service pages each quarter. When you add a town, add its page. When you stop serving one, take it down or say so on the page.

Link your pages together: the service page links to the towns where you do that service, and each town page links back to the services you offer there. It helps customers and search engines find the rest.

Add proof where you have it. A photo of a finished job in that town, a short note on the kind of work you did, or a line from a real review about that service. Don't invent any of it. One true detail beats a paragraph of filler.

How does Doug write and publish them?

Doug checks every week what people search for and how you show up on Google, Maps and in AI answers. When a service or town is missing, he writes the page from your own material and publishes it to a Doug-run site or your WordPress site. If your site is hard to change, he can publish to services.yourcompany.com instead. He keeps your Google profile in step, and your weekly report lists what he published.

Because he answers your customers too, he knows the questions they actually ask, and those make the best headings on the page.

Questions

How many city pages should I have?: One for each town you genuinely serve and can say something specific about. Ten real pages beat fifty copied ones.
What is a doorway page?: A page made only to rank for a search that funnels people elsewhere, often a copy of another page with a town name swapped. Google treats them as spam.
How long should a service page be?: Long enough to answer what customers ask about that service. For most local services that is a few hundred words, with prices, timing and common questions.
Should I list prices on service pages?: If you can, yes, even as ranges. Price is the first question most customers have, and pages that answer it are more useful to people and to AI assistants.