Do city pages on my website help me rank in nearby towns?

What does a city page do, and what does it not do?

A city page is a page on your website about your work in one town. It can help your site match searches that name that town. That is a relevance signal.

It does not change where your business is. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and prominence. Distance is how far each business is from the person who searches. A page on your site cannot change that distance.

Why do the Map results still favour the business in the town?

Google Maps results lean on distance. A business in the searcher’s own town starts with an advantage that a page on your site cannot remove.

Our August 2026 study looked at 39 towns and 10 trades, which gave 390 question pairs. We asked ChatGPT one question per town and trade, and we ran one Google Maps search for the same trade and town. These figures show how mixed the picture is:

The study asked one question per town and trade. It does not prove what causes these results. It does show that ChatGPT named out-of-town companies often, and that it rarely cited a business’s own site.

Where do the answers come from, if not from my website?

In our August 2026 study, ChatGPT drew mostly on third-party sites. The top five third-party sites made up 67.1% of the third-party citations. HomeStars alone made up 27.3%. Birdeye, ProScore, ThreeBestRated, and the BBB also appeared in the top group.

This means a city page is only one part of the picture. Your profiles and reviews on those sites may matter as much as a page on your own site.

When is a city page worth writing?

Write a city page when all of these are true:

1. You really serve that town.
2. You have real jobs, photos, or customer feedback from there.
3. You can say something about the town that a copy of another page cannot say.

If you cannot meet these three tests, do not write the page. In our experience, pages that copy one template and swap the town name add little. We cannot promise any ranking from a city page.

How do I build a city page that earns its place?

1. Pick one town where you already do work.
2. Describe the jobs you did there, in plain words, with real photos.
3. List the services you offer in that town.
4. State how you serve the town: from your shop, or by travelling to the customer.
5. Add your phone number and a simple way to ask for a quote.
6. Link to the page from your service pages.

Write each page by hand. Do not reuse the same text for every town.

Does a city page change my Google Business Profile?

No. Your profile shows the address or service area you set in it. Google’s help pages say you should hide your address only if you are a service-area business. In that case, list your service area instead.

Google’s guidelines also say your business must be represented accurately. They say there should be only one profile per business. Do not create extra profiles or fake addresses for nearby towns. That can cause problems with how your information shows on Google Maps and Search.

What helps more than a city page for nearby towns?

Google’s help pages name several things you can do on your profile:

1. Verify your business.
2. Keep your business information complete and accurate.
3. Choose the fewest categories that describe your core business.
4. Reply to reviews.
5. Add photos and videos.

Google also says prominence depends on how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have. Google states that you cannot request or pay for a better local ranking.

What is the honest summary?

A good city page can help your website match a search that names a town. It does not move your Map position, and it cannot replace reviews, an accurate profile, and a good reputation on the review sites that people and AI tools read.