Local SEO site structure - need some advice

I am trying to get my website architecture in line and looking for some advice before creating more content/pages.

I have an HVAC company trying to rank in 9 surrounding cities. We only have 1 location. We just got all the content rewritten for the home page and services pages using the state as the long tail. Site structure is pretty simple:

• Home.com/Cooling/Repair
• Home.com/Heating/Repair

My question is, to rank strong in the 9 cities I am trying to target, is this the structure I am after:

• Home.com/Cooling/Repair
• Home.com/Heating/Repair
• Home.com/City/Cooling/Repair
• Home.com/City/Heating/Repair

I have seen people even do Home/County/City/Cooling/Repair. What is the best way to approach this? Also is there a method on how not to have the pages fight each other for rank?

Of course, all content being unique. Also for interlinking between the pages. Do I only link pages between each other only if they are in the same category?

Example

Home.com/Cooling not linking to anything in Home.com/Heating

Take a look at these two threads by @splishsplash:

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-siloing-dominate-google-in-2018.985967/
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/t...-seo-siloing-pbns-link-building-2019.1151635/

You will find your answers there.

Thank you, I will take a dive into these!

Having worked in the local HVAC niche over the years I've found it best to have the silos structured like home/services/service-1 so that way you can build a nice internal link path within the silo. For city pages I've tested a few variations but always go back to home/locations/city-1

You could get away without the silos, but IMO it's cleaner this way.


As for your internal link question, no you can link to whatever page as long as it makes sense. So if you're talking about duct cleaning for example, you can add internal links to the heating repair page, cooling installation, and a blog if the content is worded around those topics and they're connected.