Thin content, and what to do about it
A page with very little text gives a search engine almost nothing to match against a query. Thin content is one of the most common reasons a perfectly good local business never appears in results.
What counts as thin
There is no official word count. ppclift flags pages under 200 words of visible text because, in practice, a page below that threshold rarely contains enough to answer a real question.
Word count is a symptom rather than the problem. The real issue is a page that does not fully answer what the visitor came to find out.
Why it matters
Search engines match queries against the words on a page. A page with 40 words can only match a handful of searches, however good the business is.
Thin pages also convert poorly. A visitor who can't find prices, service areas or availability usually leaves rather than phoning to ask.
What a strong local service page contains
A page that ranks for a local service usually answers the same set of questions a customer would ask on the phone. What exactly is the service, and what is included? Which suburbs or towns do you cover? Roughly what does it cost, or how is it priced? How soon can you come, and how long does the job take? What makes you qualified, such as licences, insurance or years of experience?
Add proof wherever you can: photos of real jobs with useful alt text, a short description of a recent project, or a review that mentions the specific service. None of this needs to be long-winded. A page of 400 to 600 well-organised words, with headings a reader can scan, is enough for most local services, and it reads better than 1,500 words of padding.
Near-duplicate pages
A common way to end up with thin content is to make one page per suburb from a template, changing only the place name. Search engines recognise these as near duplicates, and usually index one and ignore the rest. Customers notice too: the Sebastopol page and the Wendouree page say exactly the same thing.
Location pages work when each one has something only it can say: jobs done in that area, local landmarks or travel times, the staff who cover it, or conditions particular to the place. If there is nothing genuinely different to say about a suburb, list it on one well-written service area page instead. One substantial page almost always outperforms ten thin copies of it.
Improving a page without starting again
Fixing thin content rarely means a rewrite. The quickest wins come from adding what customers already ask about. Ask whoever answers the phone for the five questions they hear most often, and answer each one on the relevant page in a sentence or two. Those questions are, almost word for word, what people type into search engines and assistants.
Search Console helps here as well. Its performance report lists the searches a page already appears for, often on the second or third page of results. A search that the page only half answers is a clear signal of what to add. Sometimes it shows that people want something the page doesn't cover at all, which may deserve a page of its own.
Where several weak pages cover the same subject, combine them into one strong page and redirect the old addresses to it with 301 redirects, so any links and history carry across. Then put a date in the calendar to review the main pages once or twice a year. Prices, services and areas change, and a page that was complete two years ago may be thin again today.
Keep the visitor in mind throughout. The aim is not to reach a word count but to leave nobody needing to phone just to find out whether you cover their suburb or what a typical job costs. A page that answers those questions clearly will usually pass any reasonable length threshold on its own, and it will convert better than one padded to reach it.
How to fix it
- Write out the questions customers actually ask before they buy, then answer each one on the page.
- Add the specifics that generic copy leaves out: suburbs served, hours, call-out fees, brands carried, how long a job takes.
- Replace stock marketing language with concrete detail. 'Servicing Ballarat, Sebastopol and Wendouree since 2009' does more work than 'quality service you can trust'.
- Consider whether several near-empty pages would be stronger as one substantial page.
- Read each main page as a first-time customer would, and list anything you would still need to ask before booking.
Common mistakes
- Padding with repeated keywords rather than adding real information.
- Putting the content in an image, where no search engine can read it.
- Loading the text with JavaScript after the page renders, which many crawlers and most AI assistants won't see.
- Publishing a page per suburb from one template with only the place name changed, which search engines treat as duplicates.
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