County pages vs city pages: which should an agent build first?
If you sell Medicare or ACA, build the county page first. Plan availability, premiums and the public enrollment numbers are all set at the county level, so a county page can carry facts that are true of that county and nowhere else. A city page for a town inside it usually adds nothing but the town's name. Build city pages second, only where people search by city and you can say something that isn't true of the next town. If you mostly sell home and auto, the order flips.
One caveat up front: neither kind of page wins the map pack. That comes from your Google Business Profile. Location pages win organic results and AI-assistant answers. Keep the two jobs separate and the decision gets simpler.
What is the difference between a county page and a city page?
Both are location pages built to answer "who helps with [insurance line] in [place]?" The only difference is the unit of place: a county and the towns inside it, or one municipality. Local SEO guides assume the city, because they are written for plumbers. Insurance is different, and the difference is the whole argument.
Why should Medicare and ACA agents build the county page first?
The product is sold by county. Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are offered by service area, and the service area is defined in counties. The plan finder on Medicare.gov asks for a ZIP code and, when that ZIP spans more than one county, asks which county the person lives in, because the answer changes the plan list. ACA plans on HealthCare.gov work the same way. Two towns in one county see the same plans. Across the county line, often not.
The variation is county-shaped. KFF's Medicare Advantage 2026 spotlight (December 9, 2025) reports that the average beneficiary can choose from 39 plans for 2026, that 28% of beneficiaries, living in 6% of counties, can choose from more than 50, and that about 391,000 beneficiaries in 122 counties across 13 states have no Medicare Advantage plan at all. "How many plans are there here?" is a county question with a county answer.
The public data is published by county. CMS releases Medicare Advantage and Part D enrollment by state and county every month. There is no city-level file. We walked through which files to pull in where to get Medicare enrollment data by county. That data turns a location page from "we proudly serve" into something an AI assistant can quote, and it only exists by county.
But don't people search by city, not county?
Mostly, yes. "Medicare agent in Boise" is a far more natural thing to type than "Medicare agent in Ada County." Two things soften that.
First, the map pack, where city searches land, is not won by pages. Google's local ranking documentation says results are based on relevance ("how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for"), distance ("how far each business is from the customer who's searching"), and prominence ("how well-known a business is"). A city page does not move your pin. Your profile, reviews and actual location do. The setup is in our Business Profile guide.
Second, a county page can name its cities. "Medicare plans in Ada County" with a specific section each on Boise, Meridian and Eagle is eligible for those city searches in organic results. The reverse isn't true: a Boise page can't carry county plan data without becoming a county page.
When should the city page come first?
- You sell home, auto or commercial. Property and casualty rates are set by rating territory, often finer than a county, and the questions (flood zones, wildfire, a city's rental rules) are city-shaped. City first, county as the hub.
- The county name is invisible. Where everyone says "Las Vegas" and nobody says "Clark County," lead with the city in the title and put the county data on the same page.
What should go on a county page?
- An answer-first opening. How many Medicare Advantage and Part D plans are available in the county this year, which carriers, and what changed. Cite the CMS or KFF figure and date it.
- The enrollment picture. Eligible beneficiaries, Medicare Advantage enrollment and penetration from the CMS county file, with the month named.
- The local network questions. The hospital systems and medical groups clients ask about, and which plan types tend to include them, with a note to confirm with the plan.
- Reviews from that county. Real ones, with permission and within the rules in our review guide.
- The compliance layer. If the page discusses Medicare Advantage or Part D plans, it carries the required "we do not offer every plan available in your area" language and the non-affiliation disclaimer. Confirm current wording with your FMO or carriers; this isn't legal advice.
- Structured data. LocalBusiness or InsuranceAgency markup with the county in the service area, FAQPage markup for the questions on the page, and Dataset markup if you publish the enrollment table.
How many location pages should an agent build?
Fewer than the vendor pitching "a page for every ZIP code" wants to sell. Google's service-area guidance lets a profile list up to 20 service areas and says the overall area "shouldn't be more than about 2 hours of driving time from where your business is based." A profile rule, but a sensible ceiling for location pages too: if you wouldn't drive there, don't build a page for it.
| Order | Build | Why | Stop when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Your home county | Deepest clients, reviews and plan knowledge | Never. Update it every AEP. |
| 2 | Each adjacent county you serve | Different plan list, different data, real calls | You run out of counties you drive to |
| 3 | City pages for the 2–3 cities with most demand | City-shaped searches exist and the three-facts test passes | The next city fails the test |
| 4 | Nothing | A fourth tier is usually a doorway farm | Now |
Most independent agents land between three and eight pages: the number you can keep current. A county page still showing last year's plan count after AEP is worse than no page, because the one thing it promised, specificity, is now wrong.
How do you keep location pages from becoming doorway pages?
Google's spam policies define doorway abuse as "when sites or pages are created to rank for specific, similar search queries," and two of its examples describe the classic agent site: "having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" and "creating substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy." A separate policy, scaled content abuse, covers "using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users." Thirty city pages from one prompt hit both.
The fix is the three-facts test: every location page holds content that could not be moved to another page without becoming false. Hierarchy helps too: a service-area hub linking to each county page, and county pages linking to their city pages. That is the "browseable hierarchy" Google contrasts with doorways.
Frequently asked questions
Should I create a location page for every city I serve?
No. Build a page for a city only when two things are true: people in that city actually search for your service with the city name, and you can say several things on the page that are true of that city and not of the next one. For a Medicare or ACA agent, the facts that change from place to place change by county, so one county page usually covers several towns better than near-identical city pages. Google's spam policies treat pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page as doorway abuse.
How many city pages should I create?
Fewer than you think. A workable order is one page for your home county, one for each adjacent county in your Google Business Profile service area, then city pages only for the two or three cities with real search demand where you can write genuinely different content. Google lets a service-area business list up to 20 service areas within about two hours' driving time of its base, a sensible ceiling for location pages too. Most agents end up with three to eight pages, not thirty.
Can I use the same content across multiple city pages?
You shouldn't. Google's spam policies name creating substantially similar pages and generating many pages without adding value for users as doorway abuse and scaled content abuse. The same template with the city name swapped is the textbook example. Each location page needs content that is only true there: that county's plans and premiums, its published enrollment figures, the hospitals and networks local clients ask about, where you meet people, and reviews from clients there.
Do county pages work for local SEO?
They work for a different search than city pages. The map pack is driven by your Google Business Profile and by relevance, distance and prominence, so no page on your site wins it alone. County pages earn organic results and AI-assistant citations for questions where the county is the real unit: which Medicare Advantage plans are available, how many people are enrolled, what changed this year. For Medicare and ACA agents that is most of the useful questions, which is why the county page comes first.
What is a doorway page?
Google defines doorway abuse as sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar search queries. Its examples include having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page, and creating substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy. For an insurance agent, a set of city pages that differ only in the city name and all push visitors to the same quote form is the kind of page the policy describes.
Where we fit
County pages built on the CMS data are part of our Growth plan: one per county you serve, refreshed as the data updates. If you'd rather build them yourself, our AEO guide for insurance agents covers everything we do. Either way, start with the county.
Not sure which counties are worth a page?
Bring your service area. We'll pull the CMS numbers for each county live and show you which ones have a story worth publishing.
Book a free 15-minute demo →