Best Way to Create City Pages Without Looking Spammy?

[VicolasSEO]

Hi all,
Many local businesses create separate pages for different cities they serve. But sometimes these pages end up looking very similar and repetitive.
What’s the best way to create city pages that actually provide value and don’t look like duplicate or thin content?
Would love to hear how others structure these pages.

 

[Glass]

The first question is do these businesses have locations in each one of these cities? Or are they service area businesses that are trying to get more organic traffic in the towns around them?

For the second situation I have had good luck doing the following:

Make a page with a unique photo that someone in that town would recognize. The town sign, a well-known landmark, etc.

Write up some unique content for the service that they provide. This gets to be hard to two or three dozen times, but it’s possible. Talk about different types of services that you performed in that town. Maybe a photo or two of the work.

Put some information about the town itself, usually information could be found on Wikipedia, write it over in your own way. You could also put information that could directly be helpful to your customer. If it’s some type of home service like plumber or HVAC, you can put the address and phone number for the building department in that town and explain the permitting process.

Some testimonials from people in that town.

The page name (URL), title, and description all containing the town name.

Maybe an outbound link to that town’s webpage.

An embedded YouTube video of work performed in that town.

Some people still think that these are doorway pages that Google will penalize you for. I don’t think that’s true. As long as you’re not making hundreds of pages with the same content only changing a few words, I think this is perfectly fine. The worst that would happen is the pages don’t rank, but as long as you have unique content on each one they should help. For those of us who have service areas which consist of 50 different suburban towns, this is one of the few things you could do in order to get exposure in those towns.

 

[VicolasSEO]

The first question is do these businesses have locations in each one of these cities? Or are they service area businesses that are trying to get more organic traffic in the towns around them?

For the second situation I have had good luck doing the following:

Make a page with a unique photo that someone in that town would recognize. The town sign, a well-known landmark, etc.

Write up some unique content for the service that they provide. This gets to be hard to two or three dozen times, but it’s possible. Talk about different types of services that you performed in that town. Maybe a photo or two of the work.

Put some information about the town itself, usually information could be found on Wikipedia, write it over in your own way. You could also put information that could directly be helpful to your customer. If it’s some type of home service like plumber or HVAC, you can put the address and phone number for the building department in that town and explain the permitting process.

Some testimonials from people in that town.

The page name (URL), title, and description all containing the town name.

Maybe an outbound link to that town’s webpage.

An embedded YouTube video of work performed in that town.

Some people still think that these are doorway pages that Google will penalize you for. I don’t think that’s true. As long as you’re not making hundreds of pages with the same content only changing a few words, I think this is perfectly fine. The worst that would happen is the pages don’t rank, but as long as you have unique content on each one they should help. For those of us who have service areas which consist of 50 different suburban towns, this is one of the few things you could do in order to get exposure in those towns.

Thanks so much for the detailed explanation! This really helps clarify how to make city pages valuable without them feeling like duplicate content. I especially like the idea of adding unique photos and useful local information, it makes a lot of sense.

 

[fisicx]

An alternative is to post about the work you do in those cities and categorise. Google really likes project pages - especially if you tell a story and include pictures. Properly catrgorised you will rank for locations and services.