The pitch is easy to understand: create one page for every city, put the place name in the URL and heading, and wait for local traffic. You can find plenty of sites doing exactly that. Their existence proves only that the pages are online, not that the strategy is durable or responsible for the rankings you saw.
Use the find-and-replace test
Open two proposed city pages side by side. If a find-and-replace on the city name turns one into the other, neither page has earned a separate place in the index. Google describes pages made for similar regional queries that funnel people toward the same destination as doorway abuse.
A useful location page should still contain useful information after you remove the city name from the headline. If the page collapses without that keyword, the local value was probably never there.
What makes a city page worth reading
A real location page answers questions that differ by market. That might include how quickly the team can reach the area, which services are available there, common property or customer needs, relevant regulations, local project examples, or proof from customers in that community.
- A service offer that is genuinely available in that city
- Original local photos, projects, reviews, or case studies
- Details about coverage, scheduling, or service logistics
- Questions customers in that market actually ask
- A clear path to call, book, or request the local service
- A visible link from a sensible service-area hierarchy
What to publish when you are not there yet
Start with one honest service-area page. List the places you truly serve, explain how coverage works, and link to the core services. As projects, reviews, partnerships, and customer questions accumulate in a market, you will have the raw material for a genuinely local page later.
Campaign pages are a separate decision
A paid campaign may need a tailored page before there is enough material for an organic location page. That is fine. If the page is thin or nearly identical to several other campaign pages, keep it out of the search index and out of the sitemap. It can still do its job for the ad without becoming part of the site's SEO footprint.
Fewer pages, stronger reasons
Location pages are not bad. Empty location pages are. A handful of pages built from real work and real customer knowledge gives you something competitors cannot reproduce with a spreadsheet and a template. That difference is valuable to search engines because it is valuable to people first.