Service Locations: What It Is and How to Manage It

Service Locations define where a specific service is available on your website. For example, you may offer "Carpet Cleaning" in South Benfleet and Wickford, but not in every town. Service Locations let you control that exactly.

WHY THIS MATTERS

- Better local SEO structure for service + location pages.

- More accurate customer expectations.

- Cleaner route handling for URLs like /services/carpet-cleaning/south-benfleet.

- Better control over where each service appears.

HOW SERVICE LOCATIONS WORK

There are two parts:

1) Locations - A location record includes: - Name (e.g. South Benfleet) - Slug (e.g. south-benfleet) - Optional area summary - Active/Inactive status

2) Service Mapping - Each service can be mapped to one or more locations. - If a service has explicit mappings, only mapped locations are valid. - If a service has no mappings, fallback mode allows all active locations.

HOW TO MANAGE SERVICE LOCATIONS

Go to: - Services > Service Locations On this screen you can:

A) Add a Location - Enter a location name. - Optional: set a custom slug. - Optional: add area summary. - Set active status.

B) Edit a Location (Inline) - Use the Edit action in the Existing Locations table. - Update name, slug, area summary, and status. - Save changes without leaving the page.

C) Map Locations to a Service - Choose a service from the dropdown. - Tick locations where that service should be available. - Save mapping. D) Pause or Delete Locations - Pause marks location as inactive. - Delete removes the location and its service mappings.

MAPPINGS COLUMN EXPLAINED

- "X mapped" = number of active services currently mapped to that location.

- Service badges show which services are mapped.

- If many services are mapped, extra ones are summarized as "+N more".

BEST PRACTICES

- Keep slugs short and lowercase with hyphens.

- Use unique, specific location names.

- Avoid creating near-duplicate locations.

- Review mappings when adding or removing services.

- Keep inactive locations paused rather than deleting if you might reuse them.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Q: Why does a service-location page return 404?

A: Usually one of these:

- The location slug does not exist.

- The location is inactive.

- The service is not mapped to that location (when explicit mappings exist).

Q: Why is a service available everywhere?

A: That service likely has no explicit mappings yet, so fallback mode is active. EXAMPLE Service: Carpet Cleaning Locations: - South Benfleet (mapped) - Basildon (not mapped) Results: - /services/carpet-cleaning/south-benfleet -> valid - /services/carpet-cleaning/basildon -> 404