This guide is the whole method. If you want to do it yourself, everything you need is here.
Step 1. Find out what Google actually has
Open Google Search Console and go to Pages. Look at two numbers: how many pages are indexed, and how many are not.
Then check the Sitemaps tab. Click your sitemap. It tells you how many URLs you submitted and how many got picked up.
If you submitted 40 and Google indexed 12, stop here. Nothing else matters until that gap closes.
Common reasons Google skips a page:
- Discovered, currently not indexed. Google saw the link and did not bother. Usually the page is thin or looks like another page.
- Crawled, currently not indexed. Google read it and passed. Same reasons, one step further along.
- Duplicate, Google chose a different canonical. You have near-identical pages and Google picked one.
Step 2. Check whether you have town pages at all
Search Google for this, with your own domain:
site:yourdomain.com "town name"
Do it for five towns you serve. If nothing comes back, or the only result is your homepage, you do not have a page for that town. You have a mention. A mention does not rank. A page ranks.
Step 3. Understand the one-page trap
Here is what almost everyone does. They build one page called Areas We Serve and list every town in a paragraph. Twenty towns, one page.
Google reads that page and decides what it is about. It is mostly about your main city, because that is where the address is, where the phone number points, and where most of the words lead. The other nineteen towns are a list item.
So you rank in the city, and in the suburbs you are a line on a page about somewhere else.
The fix is one page per town. Not a copy with the name swapped, which Google catches immediately, and which is the exact duplicate problem you were trying to avoid.
Step 4. Write a town page Google will keep
Each town page needs things that could only be true of that town:
- The neighborhoods and landmarks people there actually name
- Which of your locations serves them, and how far it is
- Prices, hours, or availability if they differ by town
- A customer from that town, by name, if you have one
- Directions or parking notes specific to that spot
Test it like this: if you could swap the town name and the page would still read correctly, it is a duplicate. Rewrite it.
Step 5. Get it indexed
Writing the page is not publishing it, and publishing is not indexing.
- Add every new URL to your sitemap.
- Resubmit the sitemap in Search Console.
- Link to each town page from a page Google already crawls: your footer, services page, or main areas page.
- Use URL Inspection on a few of them and click Request Indexing.
- Come back in two weeks and check the Pages report again.
On Squarespace, Wix and similar builders: these platforms generate the sitemap for you and do not always include every page. Open your sitemap.xml and count. If a town page is not in there, Google may never find it, however good the page is.
At an hour of research and writing each, that is most of a work month, before you touch the sitemap or wait on Google.
We do it for you. We find the towns, write a separate page for every town, and stay on Search Console until Google indexes them. $500 to start and $500 when your pages are live, then from $100 a month per page, less as more pages rank, only for the months that page holds page one and earns a click in your own Search Console. If a page slips off page one, it comes off your bill until it climbs back.
What this looked like for one local business
Where they started: 0 organic clicks a month. One site, no town pages, invisible outside their home city.
What we did: built and wrote a page for each town they served, put every one in the sitemap, and worked the indexing until Google picked them up.
Where they landed: 6,880 organic clicks, 7 months later.
The number that matters: 71.9% of those clicks came from non-brand search. People who did not know the name searched for the service in their own town, found a page written for that town, and clicked.
That is the whole mechanism. There is nothing clever in it. Somebody had to write the pages.
Do it yourself, or do not
Everything above works whether we are involved or not. Run Step 1 today. The Search Console check takes about ten minutes and tells you straight away whether you have an indexing problem or a page problem.
Get My Free 2-Minute Diagnostic It's free. No card, no call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do I rank in the city but not in the suburbs?
Almost always because you have one page covering the whole metro instead of a page per town. Google decides that page is about your main city, and the other towns are just a list on it.
Will separate town pages trigger a duplicate content problem?
Only if they are copies. Pages made by swapping the town name into the same text read as duplicates and Google tends to keep one and ignore the rest. Each page needs detail that could only be true of that town.
How do I check whether Google indexed my town pages?
Open Google Search Console, go to Pages, and compare how many pages are indexed against how many are not. Then check the Sitemaps tab to see how many URLs you submitted versus how many were picked up.
What does 'Discovered, currently not indexed' mean?
Google saw the link and chose not to index the page. It usually means the page is thin or looks too much like another page on your site.
Does this work on Squarespace or Wix?
Yes, but check the sitemap by hand. These builders generate it automatically and do not always include every page. If a town page is not in your sitemap.xml, Google may never find it.