What Pages Does a Local Business Website Need to Rank?
You don't need a big site. You need one good page for each thing you want to be found for, and a few basics that do their job.
The short answer
Here's the list we recommend for a local service business:
- A home page that says what you do and where you do it
- One page for each service you want to be found for
- A page for each town you really work in, only if you have real work to show there
- An about page and a contact page
- Answers to common questions, on the service pages or an FAQ page
That's it. A plumber with six services might have ten or twelve pages. That's plenty.
Why service pages come first
Whitespark asks local search experts every year what moves rankings. In the 2026 survey, 47 experts scored 187 factors. For regular local results (the blue links under the map), they ranked a dedicated page for each service #1. Content that's relevant to your city or neighbourhood was #2. (Whitespark)
Those are expert opinion scores, not measured data. But they match common sense. If you do roof repair and gutter cleaning, and both live on one "Services" page, Google has one page to show for two different searches.
So give each service its own page. On it, our recommendation:
- What the service is, in the words customers use
- Who it's for and where you do it
- Prices or a price range, if you can share them
- Photos of real jobs
- The questions people ask you about it, answered
- A call or book button near the top
There's no magic length. Google says it has no preferred word count, and wants pages made "primarily for people." (More on that here.)
Your home page
Your Google Business Profile has a website link. Whitespark's experts ranked keywords in the title of the page it links to #4 for regular local results, and keywords in that page's headings #8. Internal linking was #6. (Whitespark)
Our recommendation: point that link at your home page, and say what you do and where in the home page's title and main heading. "Roof Repair in Royal Oak" beats "Welcome to Our Website." Then link from the home page to every service page.
Town pages: only where they're real
This is where most sites go wrong. Copying a page 30 times and swapping the town name is spam in Google's rules. We covered that here.
Two more things Google calls out:
- City lists. "Blocks of text that list cities and regions that a web page is trying to rank for" count as keyword stuffing.
- Near-copies. Google's examples of doorway pages include "substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy."
Our recommendation: make a town page only where you truly work and have something real to say. Jobs you've done there, photos, local details. If you can't fill it with real things, skip it.
On every page: a title, a description, your details
The title. Google wants titles "descriptive and concise" and says to "Avoid keyword stuffing." It sets no length limit, but long titles get "truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width." (Google Search Central) Our recommendation: lead with the service and town, then your name.
The description. "There's no limit on how long a meta description can be," and Google uses it only sometimes. Give each page its own. Google says identical or similar descriptions on every page aren't helpful. (Google Search Central)
Your business details. LocalBusiness structured data is a bit of code that tells Google your name, address, phone and hours. Google requires the name and address in it. It helps Google read your page, but "Google does not guarantee that features that consume structured data will show up in search results." (Google Search Central)
Build it for the phone
"Google uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with the smartphone agent, for indexing and ranking." (Google Search Central) Google says to keep the same content, titles and descriptions on both versions.
Speed counts too. Google's "good" target is the main content showing "within the first 2.5 seconds." (Google Search Central) And Whitespark's experts ranked a mobile-friendly site #4 for turning searchers into customers. (Whitespark)
Our recommendation: open your site on your own phone. Tap every button. If a page is slow, shrink the big images first.
Answer the questions people ask
Google pulled Q&A from Maps in 2025, so the questions customers used to ask there need a home. Put them on your website, where you control the answers. The best spot is the service page each question is about.
One thing not to do
Don't change the date on a page to make it look new. Google's own checklist asks: "Are you changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed?" (Google Search Central) Update the page for real, or leave the date alone.
Start with one page
You don't need to build all of this this week. Pick the service that brings you the most money and give it a great page. Next month, do the next one. That's week 2 of our monthly routine.
Drop 08 has a chapter on pages that rank, with a right-vs-wrong list for town pages and what goes on every page.
Quick wins
- Give every service you want to be found for its own page
- Your home page should say what you do and where
- Make a town page only where you really work
- Every page gets its own title and description
- Build it for the phone first; that's the version Google reads
