# Service Area Pages

A Service Area Page is a whole page about one town. It has its own web address,
its own photo, and its own words. One entry here is one town page.

Go to **Content**, then **Service Area Pages**.

## How this differs from Service Area

The two screens sound alike, so it is worth being clear.

[Service Area](/content/service-area/) is a list of names. It sits in your
footer and says which towns you cover. Nothing more.

**Service Area Pages** are real pages. Each one has an address a customer can
land on from a search, room for a photo and a few paragraphs, and its own
wording for Google.

Most businesses use both. The list says where you work. A page is for a town
worth a bigger push.

## Making a town page

Click **Add New**, fill in the boxes, then click **Save**.

![The top of a Service Area Page form with four numbered marks: 1 on Town or area name, 2 on State or region, 3 on Headline override, 4 on Short intro.](../../../assets/screenshots/location-edit.png)

*The top of the form. Only the town name is required.*

**1. Town / area name.** The place, such as "Maple Falls". This also sets the
page's web address.

**2. State / region.** The short code, such as `MT`. It shows after the town
name, as "Maple Falls, MT".

**3. Headline override.** The big heading at the top of the page. Leave it
empty and your website writes one for you: "Service in Maple Falls, MT". Fill
it in when you want your own words, such as "Remodels and repairs in Maple
Falls".

**4. Short intro.** A line or two under the heading. It is also the wording
Google shows under your link, so make it read like a sentence.

**Hero image** is the wide photo at the top. Click **Select image** and pick
one. [Media](/content/media/) walks through the picker.

**Body** is the rest of the page. Type into it like any page, and add blocks
the same way. [Pages](/content/pages/) covers blocks.

:::caution[Warning]
The **Slug** fills itself in from the town name. It is the last part of the
page's web address, and it should be set once, while the page is new.

Change it later and every old link stops working. [Saving and
publishing](/start-here/saving-and-publishing/) has the full warning.
:::

Then click **Publish**. The page is live that second.

## Showing local photos on the page

A town page works much harder with photos of work you did in that town.

Put those photos in an album of their own first.
[Gallery](/content/gallery/) walks through making one. Then point a Gallery
block at it.

1. Click at the end of the **Body**, then press **Enter** for a clean line.
2. Type `/` and then `gallery`. Two choices appear. Pick the second, the one
   that says it pulls from the Gallery collection.
3. Fill in the form, then click **Insert**.

![The Gallery block form with two numbered marks: 1 on the Headline box, 2 on the Album slug box.](../../../assets/screenshots/location-gallery.png)

*The Album slug box is the one that matters here. The same form opens again if
you click the block and then the pencil.*

**1. Headline.** The title above the photos, such as "Recent work near Maple
Falls".

**2. Album slug.** The album to show. Type the album's slug and only that
album's photos appear. Leave it empty and every album shows, which is not what
you want on a town page.

An album's slug is on the right when you have that album open. It is the album
title in lower case with dashes, such as `bayview-street-remodel`.

Then click **Publish**.

## What Google shows

The panel on the right has an **SEO** section, the same one every page has.
[Pages](/content/pages/) explains each box.

Two things are worth knowing about town pages:

- Leave **SEO Title** empty and your heading is used, with your business name
  after it.
- Leave **Meta Description** empty and your **Short intro** is used.

So filling in the heading and the intro well is most of the job. Only reach for
the SEO boxes when you want different wording there.

## Where the page shows up

**At its own address.** "Maple Falls" lives at
`yoursite.com/service-areas/maple-falls`.

![The live Maple Falls page, with its heading, its intro, a Request a quote button and a photo below.](../../../assets/screenshots/location-live.png)

*The heading, the intro and the photo all come from the form.*

**On your Service Areas page.** Every town page you publish is listed there on
its own, as a card with the photo and the intro. You do not have to add it.

**In a Service Areas block.** The same cards can also show partway down another
page, such as your home page. [Pages](/content/pages/) shows how blocks are
added.

## The order town pages appear in

The **Sort order** box at the bottom of the form sets it. The lowest number
goes first, and an empty box counts as zero. Two towns with the same number
fall back to A to Z.

**Featured** is a switch next to it. On its own it changes nothing. It only
matters when a Service Areas block is set to show featured towns only.

## Taking a town page down

:::caution[Warning]
Both of the buttons below take the page off your website the moment you click.
Its address stops working, and its card vanishes from your Service Areas page.
Any link or search result pointing at it lands on nothing.
:::

**Unpublish Service Area Page** hides it and keeps it. Publishing brings it
back word for word.

**Move to Trash** is for a page you are done with. It goes to the **Trash**
tab, so you can still get it back.

[Saving and publishing](/start-here/saving-and-publishing/) covers both.