How MSPs build location pages with AI

You serve a dozen markets, but you only show up in one. Somebody tells you the fix is a location page for each area, and how AI can write all twelve before lunch. That’s exactly where this plan goes wrong.

Here’s what those pages usually look like: Page one says, “Managed IT Services in Frisco” and page two says “Managed IT Services in Arlington.” Each has the same 600 words on in the body, city names swapped, with a line about how proud you are to serve the local business community.

Google had a name for that long before AI existed: doorway pages.

Doorway pages hurt

Doorway pages are thin, duplicated pages built to catch a search engine rather than help anybody. They didn’t work when a copywriter cranked them out at $50 apiece, and they don’t work now that you can produce them for free.

They hurt you in AI search too. When every location page says the same thing, there’s nothing worth quoting on any of them and AI pulls specific sentences out of pages for results. Give them twelve versions of the same paragraph, and they’ll grab from someone else’s page.

The good news is that AI is genuinely great at helping make location pages. You just have to point it in the right direction.

Pick fewer locations

The first step is to stop trying to cover the whole map. I’d rather see you with four strong location pages than 14 weak ones, and so would Google.

Rank your markets honestly. Where do you already have clients? Where can a tech be in 40 minutes? Where’s enough of your target business to matter, and where are you just hoping? A city where you have three clients and a case study is a page. A city two hours away where you’ve never worked is a wish. Make the list short enough that you could tell a real story about each one.

Put AI on research

Once your location list is defined, let AI do the research:

Find out what’s in that market. Have it research the biggest employers, the dominant industries, the business parks and downtown districts, the chamber of commerce, the regional hospital or clinic group and anything about local broadband and carriers.

Get the local competition on paper. Have AI pull up the IT providers already ranking in that city and summarize what each one claims. You’re looking for the gap. If all three of them lead with break-fix and none mention compliance, you know what your page needs to lead with.

Mine your own records for that market. What did you do there? Which clients, which industries and which problems? Give AI your notes and let it turn them into a paragraph. One honest sentence about a manufacturing client near a specific business park beats a page of “proudly serving” text.

Change the angle, not just the city name. A market full of small manufacturers doesn’t need the same page as a county seat full of law offices and clinics. Have AI write out a specific angle you can take for each location page based on what’s actually there.

What every location page needs

Every location page needs at least two things that are only true of that market. Not “we’re proud to serve Frisco.” Anybody can write that about anywhere. I mean name the industry cluster, the drive time from your office, the compliance pressure those businesses are under or the thing you fixed for a business on that street.

Don’t let AI invent facts. It will absolutely tell you about the thriving healthcare corridor in a town of 5,000 if you let it. Everything specific either comes out of your records or comes with a source.

If AI can’t get two facts from you or from search results, that page isn’t ready. A hollow location page doesn’t fail to help people and it drags down other pages.

Two prompts to get you going

Paste these into any AI assistant with live web search.

PROMPT 1: RESEARCH THE MARKET

Using web search, research [city, state] as a market for a managed IT services provider. Tell me the largest employers and dominant industries, the main business districts or parks, the professional services presence such as medical, dental, legal and accounting, the local chamber of commerce or business association, and anything notable about connectivity in the area. Then list the IT providers currently ranking for managed IT services in this city and summarize what each one leads with. Include a source link for everything. If you can’t verify something, leave it out rather than guessing. Finish by telling me what a provider could say about this market that the current competitors are not saying.

PROMPT 2: WRITE THE LOCATION PAGE

Write a location page for [city] for my managed IT company. Use only these facts: [paste the verified research, plus your own clients, projects and drive time for that market]. Do not add any claim that isn’t what I gave you. Open by naming something specific and true about doing business in this city, not with a generic intro. Cover who we serve there, what problems those businesses have and how we handle them. Include our real proof for that market. Use plain language a business owner would use, and mark anything you’d need me to confirm before it goes live.

Location pages strategy

Location pages work when they read like somebody who drives out there wrote them. AI makes it possible through research.

The strategy for your MSP this quarter is to write four real location pages. Then, you write four more after you’ve done the research about the next four markets.

Related: How to get recommended by AI.