If you run a business where you travel to your customers, like a plumber or a landscaping company, you operate what’s known as a service area business. This is a company that visits or delivers to customers directly at their locations instead of having them come to a storefront. Since you don’t have a traditional shop, how do you tell Google, “Hey, I serve this whole area”? The answer lies in setting up your Google Business Profile correctly.
Getting this right is a huge deal. A well optimized profile can become your best source for local leads, especially since so many local searches on a smartphone lead to a call or visit within a day. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from initial setup to avoiding common pitfalls that could get your profile suspended.
What is a Service Area Business?
A service area business is a company that visits or delivers to customers directly at their locations. Instead of customers coming to a brick and mortar shop, you go to them. Think of home repair services, cleaners, electricians, and caterers.
If you operate out of a home office or a central office without customer walk ins, Google considers you a service area business. Here are the most important things to remember:
- One Listing Per Location: Google’s guidelines are clear that you should only have one Business Profile to represent your entire service area if you operate from a single central location.
- No Public Address: A true service area business does not display a physical address on its Google profile. Instead, it shows a defined service region. Google requires you to hide your address if you don’t have a storefront with signage where you accept customers.
- No Virtual Offices: You cannot use a PO Box or a virtual office address for your listing. Google requires the address used for verification to be a real location where your business operates, and using a mailbox rental will likely lead to suspension.
Storefront, Hybrid, or Service Area Business: Which Are You?
Before setting up your profile, you need to know exactly which category your business falls into. Choosing the wrong one can confuse customers and violate Google’s guidelines.
The Hybrid Business Model
A hybrid business is a company that has a physical location open to customers and also travels to provide services or deliveries. A great example is a restaurant that offers both dine in service and local food delivery. Hybrid businesses can show their address on Google Maps while also specifying a service area. To qualify, your location needs permanent signage and must be staffed during business hours.
The Storefront Model
This is the traditional model. You choose a standard business listing with a physical address if customers only come to your location and you do not travel to them. Think of a retail boutique or a dental office. Your address will be public, and you won’t set a service area.
The Pure Service Area Business Model
You should choose a service area business listing if you only visit or deliver to your customers and do not serve them at your business address. A home based contractor is a perfect example. In this case, your address will be hidden, and you will define your business by the region you serve.
Choosing the right type is essential. Listing a home address that customers shouldn’t visit is a common reason for Google Business Profile suspensions. If you are unsure about your setup, it might be helpful to consult with experts or explore professional search optimization services who can ensure your listing is optimized for visibility without risking compliance issues.
Setting Up Your Google Business Profile Service Area
Defining your service area correctly tells customers exactly where you operate. It replaces a single map pin with a shaded region showing your reach.
How to Define Your Service Area (Cities and ZIP Codes)
Gone are the days of setting a simple radius around your location. Google now requires you to specify your service area by naming cities, postal codes, or other regions. For instance, you would enter “Dallas, TX”, “Fort Worth, TX”, and “Arlington, TX” to cover the metroplex.
The 20 Location Limit
Google allows you to add up to 20 distinct areas to your profile. This prevents spam and forces businesses to be realistic about their reach. If you serve a very large region, you’ll need to choose the most important cities or use broader regions like counties to stay within the limit. There is no ranking bonus for using all 20 slots, so focus on quality over quantity.
The Two Hour Drive Rule of Thumb
As a general guideline, Google recommends that your service area not extend much beyond a two hour drive from your business’s physical base. This keeps your listing locally relevant and manages customer expectations. While it’s not a strict technical limit, listing locations far outside this boundary is unlikely to help you rank in those distant searches anyway.
Managing Your Address and Service Area Settings
Your business will change over time, and your Google profile needs to keep up. You might expand into new neighborhoods or even pivot from a home based operation to a full fledged storefront.
Why and How to Hide Your Business Address
If you run a service area business, you must hide your address. This is a strict Google guideline for any business that does not serve customers at its company location. Failing to do so is one of the most common reasons for getting your profile suspended.
To hide your address, you simply clear the address fields in your profile settings and add your service areas instead. The address remains on the back end for Google’s verification purposes but will not be shown to the public. Be aware that making this change can sometimes trigger a re-verification from Google.
How to Edit or Remove a Service Area
You can easily update your service area as your business evolves.
- Go to your Google Business Profile and select Edit Profile.
- Navigate to the Location section and find Service Area.
- Add or remove cities or ZIP codes from your list.
- Click Save. The changes can take up to 48 hours to appear publicly.
If you pivot to a storefront only model, you can remove all your service areas. To do this, you must first have a physical address entered in your profile.
Verification, Ranking, and Staying Compliant
Getting your service area business listed is one thing; getting it to rank and stay compliant is another.
Verifying a Service Area Business Without a Public Address
Even though your address is hidden from the public, Google still needs a real, physical mailing address to verify your business. You cannot use a PO Box or a shared virtual office.
Most often, Google will mail a postcard with a verification code to this address. In some cases, they may offer other methods like phone, email, or even video verification. During a video call, you may be asked to show your branded work vehicle, tools of the trade, or business documents to prove you are a legitimate operation.
How Google Ranks a Service Area Business (Proximity vs. Prominence)
Google uses three main factors for local ranking: relevance, distance, and prominence. For a service area business, distance (or proximity) is calculated from your hidden physical address, not the service areas you list. This means you will naturally rank better for searches closer to your actual base of operations.
Simply adding a city to your service area does not guarantee you will rank there. To overcome the distance factor, you need to focus on prominence by building topical authority across your site. This includes:
- Getting more high quality reviews.
- Building a strong website with pages for each location you serve. Start with a clear keyword cluster to organize your city and service pages.
- Ensuring your business is listed in relevant online directories.
Also, strengthen crawl paths with sensible internal links between your location and service pages to help Google understand your site structure.
A business with strong prominence, like one with hundreds of positive reviews, can often outrank a closer competitor with a weaker reputation. Optimizing for these factors requires a consistent strategy, which is where a dedicated SEO service can make a huge impact by creating programmatic SEO geo‑targeted content to signal your relevance across your entire service area.
Citation Management for Businesses with a Hidden Address
Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number on other websites like Yelp, Angi, and local directories. For a service area business, the question is whether to include your address on these other sites.
It’s generally best to keep your information consistent everywhere. Many directories will display the address you provide, and that’s okay. Google’s rule is about what is displayed on Google. Having a consistent address across the web can actually increase Google’s confidence in your location. Some platforms, like Yelp, do allow you to hide your street address, which is a great option to use when available. To keep citations clean, run a quick technical SEO audit to catch NAP inconsistencies before they spread.
The Single Profile Rule
Remember, you can only have one profile for each business location. Trying to create multiple profiles for different cities you serve from the same office is a spam tactic that will get your listings suspended. If you do have multiple, genuinely staffed offices in different cities, then each of those locations is eligible for its own profile.
High Risk of Suspension: Why You Can’t Use Home or Virtual Addresses Publicly
Listing a home address publicly or using a virtual office is playing with fire. Google’s systems are designed to detect residential addresses and known mail forwarding centers.
- Public Home Addresses: If you are a home based service area business, your profile will eventually be suspended if the address isn’t hidden.
- Virtual Offices: Using a mail-drop address is explicitly against the rules unless it is staffed by your team during business hours, which is rarely the case. Suspensions for this are very common and extremely difficult to reverse.
Recovering from a suspension can be a long and stressful process, often requiring extensive documentation to prove your business is legitimate. It’s far better to follow the rules from the start.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What’s the main difference between a service area business and a hybrid business?
A service area business only travels to customers and keeps its address hidden. A hybrid business serves customers at its physical storefront and travels to them, so it displays an address and a service area.
2. Will adding more cities to my service area make me rank higher in those cities?
Not directly. Your ranking is most strongly influenced by the proximity of the searcher to your hidden physical address. Adding a city tells Google you serve that area, but you need to build prominence (including reviews and authoritative content for Google) to rank well there.
3. What should I do if my service area business serves more than 20 locations?
Since you’re limited to 20 areas, you should prioritize. List the most important cities or use broader geographic terms like counties that encompass multiple smaller towns.
4. Why did Google suspend my profile after I listed my home address?
Google suspends profiles that violate its guidelines. If you operate a service area business from home without a public storefront, you are required to hide your address. Displaying it is a common reason for suspension.
5. Can I use a PO Box or virtual office for my service area business verification?
No. Google requires a real, physical address where you can receive mail (like a verification postcard) and where your business genuinely operates. Using PO Boxes or virtual offices is a direct violation of their guidelines and will lead to suspension.
6. How does Google know where my business is if my address is hidden?
You provide a real address to Google for verification purposes, even though it’s not shown publicly. Google uses this hidden address to calculate proximity for local search results.
Conclusion
Successfully managing a service area business profile on Google is about understanding the rules and using the tools correctly. By choosing the right business type, defining your service area thoughtfully, and focusing on building a prominent online reputation, you can turn your Google listing into a powerful engine for generating local leads.
Staying compliant is the foundation of a long term strategy. Missteps like showing a home address or using a virtual office can get you removed from Google overnight.
If navigating these rules feels like a full time job, you’re not alone. Many business owners are masters of their trade, not SEO. That’s where support can be a game changer. Services like Rankai can handle the complexities of local SEO, ensuring your profile is perfectly optimized and compliant so you can focus on serving your customers. If you want a hands off solution to supercharge your local growth, consider booking a demo with the Rankai team.
