LOCAL

Service area page that is not a doorway

Use when you need a page for a town or area you serve and want it to have real substance rather than a swapped place name.

service-area-page-brief.md

Download .md

You are helping me write a service area page that would survive a manual review for thin or doorway content.

Service: {{SERVICE}}
Town or area: {{AREA}}
Business: {{BUSINESS_NAME}}
Genuine local specifics I can confirm (jobs done there, local conditions, travel times, local regulations, neighborhoods, landmarks, typical property types): {{LOCAL_SPECIFICS}}
Pricing or lead time information I am willing to publish: {{PRICING_INFO}}

First, before writing anything, assess my local specifics. Tell me honestly whether there is enough genuinely area-specific material here to justify a separate page, or whether this should be a section on a parent service page instead. Give a one-line verdict and your reasoning.

If there is enough, produce a page outline with:
1. H1 and meta title
2. An opening 60 to 80 words that states the service, the area and one concrete local fact
3. Four to six H2 sections, each with a two-line note on what goes in it and which of my local specifics it uses
4. A local proof section, listing what I need to supply: named jobs, photos, review quotes
5. Six FAQ questions a person in {{AREA}} would actually type
6. Internal links to suggest, with anchor text

Constraints:
- Do not invent street names, landmarks, statistics, population figures or council rules. Where a local detail would help but I have not supplied it, write [NEEDS INPUT: what to find out].
- Do not write any sentence that would still be true if the area name were swapped for another town.
- No em dashes. No summary paragraph that restates the opening.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{SERVICE}}
{{AREA}}
{{BUSINESS_NAME}}
{{LOCAL_SPECIFICS}}
{{PRICING_INFO}}

Getting a better result

The honest verdict step is the most useful part - take it seriously when it says merge the page.
Every [NEEDS INPUT] marker is a research job, not an optional extra. Publishing with them unresolved gives you a doorway page.
One real job photographed and described in that area is worth more than 500 words of area description.

Questions about this prompt

When should I use this instead of copying an existing service page?

Before you commit to the URL. Duplicating a service page with a new town dropped in is the default approach and it is what gets pages flagged as thin. This one starts by judging whether {{LOCAL_SPECIFICS}} justifies a separate page at all, which is only useful while the decision is still open.

What do I need to have gathered first?

Genuine material for {{LOCAL_SPECIFICS}}: jobs you have done in {{AREA}}, travel times, typical property types, local conditions you can confirm. Decide what {{PRICING_INFO}} you are willing to publish as well. With little to give it, the verdict step will tell you to merge, which is correct but not what you came for.

What does it produce?

A one line verdict with reasoning first, then, if it passes, an H1 and meta title, a 60 to 80 word opening, four to six H2 sections, a local proof list, six FAQs and internal link anchors. The verdict and the [NEEDS INPUT] markers are the useful parts. The outline is the easy half.

What is the mistake that turns this into a doorway page?

Publishing with the [NEEDS INPUT] markers quietly deleted or filled in from memory. Each one is a research job. If a sentence would still be true with the name of another town swapped in, it is doing nothing, and one real job photographed and described in {{AREA}} is worth more than 500 words of area description.