If your business serves several cities, you have probably considered building service-area pages. Done well, they help customers in each area understand what you offer there and help search engines understand how your site is organized. Done badly, they become a pile of near-identical pages linked from a footer that nobody reads. The difference is largely about internal linking for service-area pages: how the pages are structured, how they connect, and whether each one earns its place.
This guide covers a practical structure, the anchor text and breadcrumb choices that support it, and the line between useful location content and doorway pages.
Start by deciding which pages deserve to exist
Internal links cannot rescue thin pages. Google’s spam policies define doorway abuse as pages created to rank for specific, similar queries that lead users to intermediate pages less useful than the final destination. One of Google’s examples is having multiple pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page. Another is creating substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy.
Before linking anything, ask of each planned page:
- Do we actually serve this area, regularly, with the same quality of service?
- Is there something genuinely different to say, such as travel time, local building or permitting considerations, typical property types, common problems in that area, or which of our services people there ask for most?
- Would a customer from that area find the page more helpful than our general service page?
If the answer to the second question is “not really,” a single strong service page that lists the areas you cover is the better choice. Fewer, better pages are easier to link well.
Do not invent local details to make a page look unique. If you are not sure a fact about a city is accurate, leave it out. Thin but honest beats detailed but wrong.
Use a hub and spoke structure
A hub and spoke structure groups related pages under a parent page that links down to each of them, while each child links back up. For service-area content, a common shape has three levels:
| Level | Example URL | Links to |
|---|---|---|
| Locations hub | /locations/ |
Each city hub, and your main service pages |
| City hub | /locations/conyers-ga/ |
Up to the locations hub; down to the city’s service pages; across to related services |
| City + service page | /locations/conyers-ga/seo-services/ |
Up to the city hub; across to the main service page; to one or two closely related pages |
This mirrors how people browse: area first, then service, or service first, then area. You can see the pattern on our own Georgia service areas hub.
Not every city needs every service page. If you only have something specific to say about web design in one city, build that one and skip the rest. A hierarchy with gaps is fine; a hierarchy padded with filler is not.
Link between service pages and location pages in both directions
The most common gap we find is one-way linking. Location pages link to the main service page, but the main service page never links back. Google’s link best practices say every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site, and internal links should help people and Google make sense of your site.
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From the main service page to areas
Add a short “Areas we serve” section with links to the city pages that have genuine substance for that service.
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From city pages to the main service page
Link to the full service page for detail that does not change by city, such as process and what is included, instead of repeating it.
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Between nearby or related pages, sparingly
A link from one city page to a neighboring city’s page makes sense when they share a corridor or a customer would plausibly compare them. Linking every city to every other city does not.
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From blog posts to the most relevant page
When an article discusses a topic tied to a service, link to the service page; when it is genuinely about one area, link to that area’s page.
Write anchor text that describes the destination
Google’s link guidance describes good anchor text as descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to both the linking page and the destination. It also warns against cramming keywords into links, noting that keyword stuffing violates its spam policies.
Good
“See our local SEO services for the full process.” The link reads naturally and says where it goes.
Also good
“We also work with businesses in Douglasville.” A city name as anchor text is natural when the destination is that city’s page.
Weak
“Click here” or “learn more.” Out of context, these say nothing about the destination.
Avoid
“best cheap emergency plumber Marietta GA plumbing services near me.” This is keyword stuffing, not a link.
Vary anchor text naturally. If every link to a page uses the same exact phrase, it usually means the links were placed for search engines rather than readers.
Add breadcrumbs and mark them up
Breadcrumbs show where a page sits in the hierarchy, such as Home > Locations > Conyers, GA > SEO Services, and give visitors a one-click way up a level. They also reinforce the hub and spoke structure with consistent links on every page.
Google’s breadcrumb structured data documentation explains how to describe this with BreadcrumbList markup. A few points worth noting from it: build the trail around a typical user path rather than simply copying the URL structure, validate the markup with the Rich Results Test, and remember that markup must follow Google’s structured data guidelines. Most SEO plugins for WordPress can output breadcrumbs and the matching markup.
Keep navigation and footers reasonable
- Main menu: a single “Locations” or “Areas we serve” item that leads to the hub is usually enough. Dropdowns with dozens of cities are hard to use on mobile.
- Footer: a short list of your main areas is fine. A footer with every city and service combination looks like a link farm and helps no one.
- Crawlable links: Google’s guidance says it can only reliably crawl links that are
<a>elements with anhref. Area selectors built with JavaScript buttons or dropdown forms may hide pages from crawlers. - No orphans: every location page should be reachable from at least the hub and one relevant service page, not only from the XML sitemap.
Audit your existing internal linking
If you already have location pages, an audit usually reveals quick wins:
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Crawl the site
Use a crawler to list every page with its inbound internal link count. Location pages with zero or one internal link are candidates for better connections, or for consolidation.
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Check Search Console
The Links report shows top internally linked pages. If your most important services are not near the top, your linking does not reflect your priorities.
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Find near-duplicates
Compare location pages side by side. If two pages differ only by the city name, either add real substance or merge them into a stronger page and redirect the weaker URL to it.
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Fix broken and redirected links
Update internal links that point to redirected or missing URLs so they go directly to the final page.
Set realistic expectations
Internal linking helps search engines discover pages and understand how they relate, and it helps visitors move to the page that answers their question. It will not make thin pages rank, and it is one factor among many in how a site performs. A clear structure with fewer, genuinely useful location pages is easier to maintain and easier to trust than a large one built mostly from templates.
If you want a second opinion on your site’s structure, our technical SEO services include internal link and site architecture audits.
Frequently asked questions
How many internal links should a service-area page have?
There is no ideal number. Google’s guidance is essentially that if it feels like too many, it probably is. Link to the hub, the main service page, and a few genuinely related pages.
Should city pages link to each other?
Only when it helps a visitor, such as neighboring areas served by the same crew. A full grid of city-to-city links is rarely useful.
Is it a doorway page if I do not have an office in that city?
Not automatically. Service-area businesses legitimately serve places without offices. The question is whether the page is genuinely useful and distinct, or a near-copy built to catch a search and funnel visitors elsewhere. Never imply an office you do not have.
Do breadcrumbs replace the main menu?
No. Breadcrumbs complement the menu by showing position and offering a quick path up the hierarchy.
