Every multi-location business eventually asks the same question: can we just make a page for each town? You can, and if those pages are the same text with the town name swapped, Google will treat them as doorway pages, which is not a neutral outcome. Filtered pages are dead weight on the whole domain.
What makes a location page real
Something that could only have been written about that location. Local staff, actual addresses served, projects completed nearby, parking and access details, area-specific pricing or availability, photographs taken there. If the page would survive having the town name removed and still make sense, it is not a location page, it is a template.
Google Business Profile is the bigger lever
For most multi-location businesses, the profiles matter more than the pages. One per genuine physical location, categories set precisely, services listed, hours accurate, photographs added regularly, and posts published often enough that the profile looks alive. Service-area businesses without a public premises have their own rules, and following them properly is where many competitors quietly disqualify themselves.
Reviews, per location, continuously
Review volume and recency influence which of the three map results gets the call, and they behave locally rather than nationally. A branch with forty recent reviews will outperform a sister branch with six, even with identical everything else. Build review requests into job completion rather than running occasional pushes.
Structure that scales
Use a consistent URL pattern, link each location page from a hub, add LocalBusiness schema with the correct address and coordinates per page, and embed the map for that branch rather than head office. Then track rankings by location, because a national average hides the branch that is invisible.
The honest limit
You cannot rank in a town where you have no genuine presence, no reviews and no local proof, and attempting it at scale is how sites get filtered. Prioritise the locations where you actually operate and can accumulate evidence. Ten strong location pages beat forty thin ones, and the difference in local SEO outcomes is not subtle.