A coverage area page
Do you come to me is the first question most visitors to a service business site have. A coverage page answers it in one place, in text, without requiring anybody to interpret a map.
Use cases
Short answer
A coverage page should name the towns and counties you serve in plain text, say where the boundary is, and state any difference in charges or timing by distance. One well-written coverage page is stronger than a thin page for every town, and it is far easier to keep accurate.
Name places in text
A map is invisible to anything reading the page and awkward on a phone. The towns have to appear as words, because that is the only form a customer, a crawler or an answer engine can all use.
List the actual names people use, including neighborhoods and villages rather than only the main towns. Those local names are how people describe where they live.
Keep the list honest. A coverage page listing places you would decline produces wasted calls, and the customer who called and was turned away remembers it.
Include the county as well as the town. People describe where they live differently depending on who is asking, and a page carrying both forms matches more of the ways somebody will phrase it.
Say where the boundary is
A radius is not an answer, because nobody knows how far they are from you in miles. Naming the edge in real places is what a reader can actually use.
Say what happens at the edge. We go beyond this for larger jobs, or there is an additional charge past this point, is more useful than a hard line that is not quite true.
And say what is definitely outside. Being told no in ten seconds is a better experience than an enquiry that sits for two days before being declined.
Say whether the boundary moves with the size of the job. Most trades will travel considerably further for a week of work than for an hour of it, and saying so converts enquiries you would otherwise refuse.
Charges and timing by distance
If travel affects the price, say how. A charge that appears on a quote and was never mentioned on the site is the most avoidable complaint in service work.
If it affects timing, say that too. We are in that area on Tuesdays is genuinely useful scheduling information rather than an inconvenience to conceal.
Our page on pricing claims covers stating charges. The general rule is that anything affecting the final figure belongs on the page.
Say whether an emergency or out-of-hours visit changes the area. A business that covers three counties in daylight and one at night should say that, because the person reading at midnight is deciding then.
What a coverage page needs
The list below is what a visitor is actually checking. Missing any of it means an enquiry that could have been answered in seconds becomes a phone call or a lost customer.
- Every town and county served, named in text
- Neighborhood and village names people actually use
- Where the boundary is, in real places
- Any travel charge and where it starts
- Any difference in timing by area
- What is definitely outside the area
- A contact route for anybody unsure
One page or many
One coverage page is right for most small businesses. It is accurate, easy to maintain, and it answers the question completely without creating twenty pages nobody wants to write.
Individual town pages are worth building only where you have something specific to say about that place. Our page on location pages covers the test.
Pages that differ only by a swapped town name are the doorway pattern, covered on our doorway pages page, and they compete with each other rather than adding up.
Keeping it accurate
Coverage changes as a business grows or contracts, and the page is rarely updated to match. A town you stopped serving keeps producing calls until somebody notices.
Review it whenever your capacity changes, and at least yearly. It takes minutes and it is one of the highest-value reviews on a service business site.
Update the business profile at the same time. Our page on consistent business details covers why a disagreement between the two is worse than either being wrong alone.
Keep a note of the places you added and removed, with dates. When somebody asks why they were told something different last year, that note is the difference between an explanation and an argument.
Linking it properly
Link to the coverage page from every service page, in the sentence where the area comes up. That is where the question occurs to the reader, and a link there gets followed.
Put it in the main navigation for a service business. It answers the first question a visitor has, and burying it costs enquiries every single day.
Our page on internal linking covers why placement matters that much, and a coverage page is among the clearest cases on any site.
Questions people ask
Is a map enough?
No. A map is invisible to anything reading the page and awkward on a phone. Name the towns and counties in text, including the neighborhood names people actually use to describe where they live.
Should I list a radius?
A radius is not an answer, because nobody knows how far they are from you in miles. Name the edge in real places and say what happens there, such as an extra charge or a larger minimum job.
Do I need a page for every town?
Only where you have something specific to say about that place. Pages differing only by a swapped town name compete with each other. One accurate coverage page serves most small businesses better.
How often should I update it?
Whenever your capacity or area changes, and at least yearly. A town you stopped serving keeps producing calls until somebody notices, and the business profile needs updating at the same time.
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