Every local business that ranks has the same shape: a homepage, one services page that lists everything, a page for each service, and a page for each service in every town you cover. Get that skeleton right and everything else gets easier. Here’s how it fits together — and why one big “Services” page quietly kills your rankings.
Each layer feeds the one below it. Follow the arrows — this is the whole structure on one screen.
Your front door. It says who you are, the one thing you do best, and the area you cover — then points straight at your services. It is not where you explain every service in detail. Its job is to send people (and crawlers) deeper.
One page that lists every service with a line each and a link each. Think of it as the menu, not the meal. It gathers all your service pages in one place, passes authority down to them, and gives Google a tidy map of everything you do.
This is the part most people get wrong. Every service gets its own page, aimed at its own search. Boiler installation, boiler repair and central heating are three different things people type — so they are three different pages, not three paragraphs on one.
The engine. Take one service page and make a version for each town you cover — the exact service + location play. That is how you show up for “boiler installation in Salford” as well as “…in Oldham” and “…in Bolton”, instead of hoping one page ranks everywhere.
This is the mistake that holds most local sites back. If you take one thing from this page, take this: a page about everything ranks for nothing.
Think about how people actually search. Nobody types “plumber who does boilers and bathrooms and heating”. They type “boiler installation”, or “bathroom fitter near me”. Each of those is a different person with a different need — and a different page should meet each of them. One page trying to be all of them is clear to nobody, so Google ranks it for nothing and AI has nothing specific to quote.
Give each service its own page and everything compounds: a sharper keyword, a stronger internal link, a place to earn reviews and citations, and depth on the subject that tells Google you actually know it. That depth is what earns the citation — the specific page that answers the specific question.
Before you write a word, write the list. Start with your city, then every surrounding area you’d happily drive to. Take Manchester — the patch fans out fast:
Now multiply. Every service you offer becomes a page in every town on that list. It sounds like a lot, but that is exactly the point — each page targets a real search that a competitor with one page can never win.
We ran this exact play for a real business — six sites, a page for every surrounding town, all written with Rank OS. See how it ranked across a whole region in the local SEO case study.
Here’s the layout in a prompt you can paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Rank OS. Fill in the brackets, run it once per town, and you have a full set of service + location pages built the right way.
You are an expert local SEO copywriter. Write a "service + location" landing page. FILL THESE IN: - Business: [BUSINESS NAME] - Service: [SERVICE — e.g. boiler installation] - Main location: [TOWN/CITY — e.g. Salford] - Nearby areas you cover: [3–6 real places — e.g. Eccles, Swinton, Worsley] - One proof point: [a price range, a guarantee, or years of experience] WRITE THE PAGE IN THIS EXACT ORDER: 1. H1: "[Service] in [Main location]" — plain and specific, no slogan. 2. Opening line: answer the search in ONE sentence right under the H1 — what you do, where, and the proof point. A number beats an adjective. 3. Why locals choose [Business]: three short trust points, one line each. 4. How it works: the [service] process in 3–5 numbered steps. 5. Areas we cover: name [Main location] and every nearby area as a real place, each with ONE line of genuine local detail (a landmark, an estate, a road) — never spun filler. 6. What it costs: a short table of real price ranges, or rows for "what changes the price". Never invent figures — write [ADD PRICE] where you're unsure. 7. FAQ: four questions a real customer asks, each answered in its FIRST sentence. 8. Call to action: one clear next step — call, book, or get a quote. RULES: - British English. - Name real, verifiable things: the town, the nearby areas, relevant local landmarks and standards bodies. - Write facts as short, straight sentences an AI could lift and quote. - No "nestled in the heart of", no invented statistics, no filler. - Use "[Service] in [Main location]" in the H1, the opening line and one subheading — not everywhere.
One warning: the prompt tells the model to write [ADD PRICE] rather than guess a number. Leave that in. Made-up prices are the fastest way to lose trust — swap them for your real figures before the page goes live.
The homepage, services-hub and listicle prompts are inside The New SearchThe location prompt above is one of a set. Inside The New Search you get the prompts for the homepage, the services hub, every service page and the listicle that ties them together — plus the AI Visibility Checklist and the full case study. The skeleton on this page, built for you.