Did you know that nearly half of all Google searches have a local intent or include “near me” in the search query? Or that these types of local searches have increased by more than 500% in the last few years? If you’re a local business, this type of location-based search is great because it makes
Did you know that nearly half of all Google searches have a local intent or include “near me” in the search query?
Or that these types of local searches have increased by more than 500% in the last few years?
If you’re a local business, this type of location-based search is great because it makes it more likely you’ll appear in search results compared to large national brands following the “we offer our services nationwide” approach to web content.
That’s because Google, other search engines (and even LLMs like ChatGPT) are programmed to show local businesses for local services.
But to be found, you need to make it obvious that your business is located in (or works within) the area a potential customer is looking at. And that’s when location-based landing pages come in.
A location-based landing page is a page on your website that promotes your services (just like your homepage) but for a specific area.
This could be for an office fit-out company in Liverpool.
Or an estate agent in St Helens.
Or even a tree surgeon in Leeds.
These pages are written to be visible in hyper-local searches (rather than someone looking for a general service) so customers can find and contact you.
And increasingly, Google and LLMs are using a searcher’s location (based on their IP address) to automatically prioritise businesses and services close to where they are when they’re
searching for something.
So, making your location clear on your website is becoming even more important.
Let’s say you run a loft conversion company in London.
You would likely have your homepage target searches around loft conversion company in London or loft conversions in London.
As an example, this is what a company called Simply Loft does, as you can see:
It’s clear on the homepage that they offer loft conversion services across London, and this works for their local SEO, because they rank in position one for the search, “loft conversion company London”:
But, London is a large area with lots of boroughs.
It’s entirely possible that someone living in Tooting, for example, is going to search for a loft conversion company in that area, rather than just a company in the general London area.
Or, given that Google uses proximity to the searcher as a factor when prioritising search results, that it will automatically list pages specifically mentioning Tooting instead of businesses that serve that area, but don’t mention it.
Which is why Simply Loft has created a series of location-based landing pages for each part of London where they work:
Each landing page has been optimised to be visible in local searches for those specific boroughs:
And you can see how this local search strategy works, because as well as ranking position one for loft conversions in London, they also appear towards the top of search results for this hyperlocal search:
This approach helps to make Simply Loft much more visible for their services across a wider area, rather than trying to rank a single page for every area.
But ranking for these localised searches doesn’t just make you more visible, it’s also more likely to lead to a conversion.
That’s because more than three-quarters of searchers contact a business within 24 hours of finding them through local search, according to stats from SEMrush, and more than a quarter end up buying from the company they found.
These landing pages can also increase your footprint at the top of search results.
It’s possible, if you’ve got a local SEO strategy in place, that you could appear multiple times at the top of local search results within Google Maps, your Google Business profile, and your location landing page, all for a single search.
Just like any other page you create for your website, there are certain things your local pages will need in order to be found, crawled and indexed by search engines.
Page titles are one of the elements Google and search engines use to figure out what your web page is about, so make the page title relevant by using local keywords.
Meta descriptions aren’t a ranking factor (and Google is increasingly writing its own descriptions based on the info it finds on the page), but we’d still recommend writing one. These descriptions should highlight your USPs and include a CTA.
You can see from the Simply Loft example below how this works:
You can read more about how to optimise title tags and meta descriptions.
Again, search engines use your H1 (the main header on the page) to understand what the page is about.
So your localised service+location keyword should be included in the H1:
One of the biggest mistakes we see with area landing pages is businesses that have copied and pasted their main service page and just changed the area name.
This always carries the risk of being seen as duplicate content by search engines.
Duplicate content is a red flag in organic search because it can confuse search engines about which page it’s meant to display, which can mean it either ranks the wrong page, or neither of your pages rank.
Each landing page should include locally relevant content.
Talk about projects you’ve completed in the area (we’ve completed 37 loft conversion projects in Tooting, for example), use testimonials and case studies from customers in the relevant area and include pictures of completed projects.
This all prevents you from running the risk of duplicating content across multiple pages and improves your chances of ranking highly in local searches.
We’ve written before about why consistent NAP matters for local SEO.
This matters more if you have multiple office locations, rather than just offering services in multiple locations.
For area landing pages for individual branches, it’s important to add the right name, address and phone number of each location on the page, and that this information is consistent across your landing page, Google Business Profile and anywhere else it’s listed online.
Having different NAP information around the web is a red flag to search engines and can reduce the chances of you ranking.
You can see how one of our clients – The Storage Team – clearly displays this information for each of their locations on their area landing pages:
Internal links are so important for SEO, but are often overlooked when it comes to landing pages and local search.
Internal links don’t just make it easier for users to get around your website. They make it easier for search engines to find your pages so they can be crawled and indexed.
Without internal links, there’s a risk that search engines might not find your pages on their own, which means they won’t rank.
When it comes to internally linking your landing pages, you should link to each location from your homepage. You can do this naturally in the main navigation through an area we serve or location option:
And on each location page, link to other pages that are close to or within that location:
Schema markup is structured data that tells search engines what a page is about and helps them pull relevant information into rich search results.
Users won’t see the schema, but search engines will.
For local area landing pages, there are two common types of schema you’ll use:
Local business schema is common on landing pages for branches with a physical location in an area.
This type of schema allows you to add the physical address and phone number of a business location, meaning you can appear in local business results. You can use a schema markup generator to create this information and then add it to the header code of your website:
And your business will appear in local search results with a display similar to this:
The other type of structured data that’s common on an area landing page is service schema.
This is more common for businesses that offer services in a local area, but don’t have a physical address.
Service schema lets you add the type of service you offer, and then add the location where the service is offered, for example:
Landscape gardening in St Helens.
You can add the areas you serve by postcode, town or city name or geographic location.
You might be reading this and be thinking, should I just create area landing pages for the whole of the UK?
Our recommendation is no, there needs to be some thought and strategy behind the area landing pages you create.
These are typically a good place to start from.
If you’re a business with a physical location in an area, this is pretty straightforward.
You should create an area landing page for each “branch”. As an example, say you’re doing SEO for estate agents that have multiple branches around the UK.
Each branch should have a landing page so it can be found for the relevant local searches.
If you’re a service business, like a landscape gardener, we’d usually recommend picking an area with a 15-20 mile radius from where you’re based, and creating landing pages for areas within that radius.
You can always branch out and expand later, but this should give you a starting point.
Say you don’t have a landing page for a particular area, but a customer has found you anyway.
This could be a good landing page because you have the relevant local content to add to the page.
One thing your landing pages will need to be beneficial, is search volume. As in, people are actually searching online for your service in that particular location.
One of the biggest risks of creating too many area landing pages is you run a higher risk of duplicating content because there isn’t enough to make it unique.
If you’re a service business in Manchester, for example, are you going to have the case studies or testimonials, or completed projects or pictures to make a unique landing page for London?
Probably not.
There’s no reason you couldn’t scale into different areas in the future, but it’s better to start with landing pages that are realistic and that you have unique content for.
We’re not gong to lie, creating multiple area landing pages for local SEO can take a lot of work.
It can’t be just a case of duplicating pages and changing locations if you want to see the benefits.
But, by putting the time and effort into creating unique, SEO optimised location pages for the areas you work in, you can see huge results from local search.
We’ve got a tonne of other information for local businesses in our local SEO guide.
Or if you want to see how we can help you win more customers with our local SEO services, get in touch.
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