Advice on applying Service Area Schema

[RosemaryB]

So I have client that delivers goods to residential addresses and commercial businesses.  They have 60+ distribution centers but want to target surrounding counties, cities and territories.

Our development team was considering using virtual location pages (thousands) for these service areas.  I have lobbied against this out of concern that Google would label these "doorway" pages.  These pages would not have full addresses.

I want to develop a strategy to gain coverage in these surrounding delivery areas.   I was told that applying https://schema.org/serviceArea might help.  However will this truly bring in the necessary visibility?   Would having only a few key select virtual locations suffice (along with Service Area schema)?

Any advice on applying https://schema.org/serviceArea attributes would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Rosemary,

You are right to be concerned about promoting virtual locations. The only safe thing for them to do is to honestly state their real, physical locations and develop organic content around other cities they serve but lack locations in.