The question every tradesperson asks
"I'm based in one place but I work across a dozen towns. How does the website handle that?" The short answer: a page per town, built from a template on records, with content that is genuinely about your work in that town; an Areas page listing them all; and your Google Business Profile's service area set to match. Here is the full answer, including what not to do.
Why one address is not enough
Google ranks pages for "[trade] [town]" searches. Your Contact page mentions your base town, so you can rank there. For every other town you serve, there is no page about your work in that town, so a competitor's page ranks instead. Google Business Profile helps in a radius around your address and fades beyond it. The towns at the edge of your patch and beyond are invisible to you unless the website gives each one a page.
The area page
A record per town, rendered by a template, with fields for: the town and its neighbourhoods; an intro (how long you have worked there, how far, response time); job photos tagged to that town with a line each; reviews from customers there; the services you emphasise there; local notes (housing stock, common jobs, access quirks); and travel time. The page ends in Call, Text and Get a quote with the town pre-filled, and carries the credentials bar.
What makes it rank rather than be ignored: the jobs, reviews and notes are specific to the town. Two area pages should not read the same, because the work in each was different.
The Areas page
/areas, listing every town you serve as a link to its page, grouped if you have many, with a map or a simple radius statement ("Within 30 minutes of [base]"). Linked from the main menu and the footer. This is where a customer checks "do they come to me" in one look.
Google Business Profile's service area
Set the service area on your profile to the towns you cover (up to twenty areas). This does not rank you in those towns, but it tells Google and customers that you serve them, and it is shown on your profile. Keep your address as your real base. Do not create extra profiles for towns where you have no premises; Google suspends them and it can take your real profile down with them.
Which towns to include
The ones you actually go to and want more work from. Typically five to fifteen. Start with the three or four where you already have the most job photos; those pages will have content on day one. Add the towns you want to grow into as you do jobs there. Do not add towns you would decline a job in; a page that brings a call you turn away costs you a review.
How the pages get content
Every job produces a photo. The tradesperson takes one before leaving, uploads it from the phone with the service, the town and a one-line caption, and it appears on that town's page, that service's page and the gallery. This is the routine that keeps area pages real. A page with no jobs should not be published; add the first two photos and then publish.
Reviews: ask every customer for a Google review; the site pulls them and can filter by the town mentioned or by manual tagging.
What not to do
- The same paragraph with the town swapped, twenty times. Google's spam systems recognise it and customers do; it does not rank.
- Towns you do not serve, to look bigger.
- Fake addresses or virtual offices for extra Google profiles.
- Area pages with no local content, published to fill the list.
- Hundreds of tiny suburbs. Pick the towns people actually search; the neighbourhoods go in the town's page as a list.
Adding a town as you grow
Create the record, write the intro and local notes, tag two or three job photos from your first jobs there, publish. Twenty minutes, by whoever runs the office. Add it to the Google profile's service area. Within weeks it starts appearing for "[trade] [town]".
What to expect
Trades that build genuine area pages report, within a quarter, enquiries from towns they previously got none from, visible in the quote form's town field and the call-tracking by page. The towns with the most job photos rank first, which is the incentive to keep photographing.
Where this sits
Area pages as records fed by job photos are part of every trade website we build, and adding them is the most frequent recommendation from a trade diagnosis. The area you cover is where the work is; the website should be visible in all of it, not just where the van sleeps.