In Google’s own words, a Google My Business profile is more than just a business listing. 

The free profile makes it easy for businesses to connect with customers across Google Search and Maps, and is pretty much essential if you’re hoping to source new customers online.

Gaining visibility among a local audience is important for any type of business, but especially so for a service-area business (SAB), which may see its reach cover a very specific geographical radius, as well as offering targeted expertise or solutions to local consumers at a distance from its own home base.

What is a service-area business?

If you’re wondering what businesses are considered SABs, you aren’t alone.

There are lots of factors that go into determining what is or isn’t a service area business, but generally, a service area business is:

• A business without a physical store
• A business that serves at the customer’s location (hence the need for no physical store)
• A business that offers a service outside of its own immediate location

Confusingly, just because your business serves a specific area, doesn’t mean it will automatically be considered a service-area business for local SEO purposes.

The concept gets easier to grasp when you start thinking about, and apply it to, the work you do. If, for example, you’re a landscaper or you fit garage doors, those are services you provide at the customer’s location exclusively, so you’re a service-area business. 

Of course, you might have a storefront where clients can come in and see your available garage door designs in person, but you’d still need to go to the client to provide the installation service, making you a service area business.

If you’re a handyman, pest controller, window cleaner or painter and decorator, you’re also a service-area business. 

Service-area businesses in Google My Business

As a SAB, you’ll naturally have a geographical area where you can deliver your services. 

It’s up to you to determine what that range is, but whether you serve clients within a 30-mile or 100-mile radius, your business will nonetheless operate within a particular zone and not beyond it.

Because you perform your service at your customer’s location, they don’t have to travel. That means they simply need to find a garage door installer who covers their zip code. 

This means the customer is therefore less likely to perform a local business search for a garage door installer within a specific distance of their location – as would be the case if they had to travel to a physical store to obtain their new garage door. 

SABs, like other local businesses, can appear in Google Maps and in the local pack. How they are set up, though, is a little different as you’ll need to specify the zip codes and cities that fall under your service area boundaries. 

This may mean an extra step is required in the traditional process of setting up and optimizing a Google My Business profile, but it will benefit you in the long run. 

With a standard GMB listing, your profile is built around your physical location, which may not accurately reflect the wider geographical area you serve.

Being able to specify those areas makes your GMB listing more accurate and more likely to rank for prospective clients further away from a physical store address, while still being covered by your service business zone in Maps and local search. 

Let’s say your garage door business is based in Rochester, New York. A traditional Google My Business listing could mean that you don’t show up in local search for a homeowner looking for an installer in Buffalo, 66 miles away, even if it’s company policy to travel up to 100 miles to offer your service.

So in that case, you’d potentially miss out on winning a customer.

A GMB service-area listing places less emphasis on proximity and allows you to tell Google that you do service Buffalo and should be visible in local search for that customer. 

How to set up a Google My Business profile for your service area business

Go to google.com/business. You’ll be presented with a screen that invites you to sign in or manage your business. To create a new listing, you’ll first need to verify that an existing profile isn’t in place. Click ‘manage’ and then, when prompted, add your business name to the search box. A drop-down list will appear, showing any businesses with that name with an existing GMB profile. For a new business, there shouldn’t be a listing in existence.

You’ll now be prompted to choose a business category. Enter just your main category for the moment as you can add additional ones later if appropriate.

Now, select specific services relevant to your offering. Google will provide a few suggestions to add to your profile, or you can input your own. 

The next screen will ask you if you wish to add an address to your business listing.

This is an important step for your SAB profile creation – select ‘no’ if you are a pure service area business with no physical location (e.g. a showroom that customers would visit).

By opting out of providing a business address, your final listing on Maps and search will also be address-free. Instead, you’ll be asked to confirm the areas that your business services.

If you do have a showroom of some kind, you’ll need to add your address to your business listing.

Google will now ask you to define your service area. You can enter up to 20 locations here, using a mix of city names, zip codes, counties, and countries. 

To ensure that your full service area is covered, choose a zip code that sits at the outer limit of that area. 

You now need to provide your contact information – these details will be displayed on your public listing so ensure you’re inputting your business number rather than your own private cell phone.

You can also add your web address, opt out of having a local business website URL listed, or alternatively, ask Google to provide you with a free website. This is automatically built using the info you input when creating your Google My Business listing.

Your service area business profile is now set up, simply click “finish” to end the process.

Image Source: Moz

To see how the areas covered look to a local search user, navigate to the “info” section from your GMB dashboard. Here, you can click to “View on Search” or “View on Maps”. 

How to avoid the spam trap

There are often misconceptions about service-area businesses because results for them tend to include more spam than other industries.

Across all verticals, spam is on the rise, but it’s an issue that can particularly affect SABs. In fact, research we carried out last year revealed that spam in listings had increased by 59% between 2018 and 2019. 

This doesn’t mean that your profile will be classed as spam by default, but it’s good to take measures to ensure you’re not falling into spammy tactics yourself — and that customers will view your business as trustworthy and authentic. 

You can avoid falling into the spam trap by following a few best practice tips to showcase listing legitimacy and encourage search users to trust your business. 

One easy way to begin building trust in your GMB listing is to be proactive about encouraging your customers to review you on Google. Reviews are trusted by the majority of local consumers and demonstrate that you are a real business, delivering real services. 

You can then build on this trust by replying to reviews in a timely manner.

If you didn’t already know, responding to reviews matters; our latest Local Consumer Review Survey revealed that 97% of consumers that read reviews, read the business’s responses, too so this is an easy way to build credibility.

Answering any questions that are asked about your business in Google’s Q&A section can also show that your listing is non-spammy. 

Additionally, regularly sharing Google My Business posts with your audience will help cement yourself as an active and authentic business, as well as helping to boost rankings and visibility.

Adding new images and uploading video at regular intervals can also help to set your business apart from spam SAB profiles. 

Even better than adding your own photos, why not encourage your customers to upload photos of your business’s work? As many local SEO experts pointed out, user-generated content will be even more important to local search in 2020.

How to optimize your service-area business listing

Once you have claimed your listing and set up the basics of your GMB profile, you can proceed to the optimization stage. 

Luckily, optimization tactics for a SAB don’t differ too much from regular listing optimization. 

Choose the right primary and secondary categories

Choosing the correct category and subcategory for your SAB is one of the most important optimization tasks you can complete – category selection accounts for two of the top 10 local pack ranking factors, according to the Moz Local Search Ranking Factors Survey. 

As BrightLocal contributor and local SEO pro Carrie Hill points out:

 Getting the right primary and secondary Google My Business categories in place for your […] Google My Business profiles can really help local rankings.

It was also a topic that came up frequently in our first webinar of the year, where panelists discussed foundational ranking factors and the state of local search in 2020.

Upload images

We’ve already mentioned that images can help your SAB listing look less spammy, but they are important for optimization, too. 

Results with images are more eye-catching and appealing to the search user, so they can help your GMB profile become more engaging and encourage clicks. 

Google recommends several different types of images be uploaded, including shots of your most popular services, managers, and team members. 

While the official Google guidelines state that a minimum of three interior and exterior shots be added to your profile, this likely won’t be possible if you’re a pure service-area business. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t get creative with GMB photos, though – include an image of your work van with company branding, for example, or a shot of your factory where the garage doors are made. Images of installed doors on site at a client location could also be used (with customer authorization).

Why not read our complete guide to Google My Business photos and looking good online for more detailed guidance?

Make use of Google Q&A

Introduced back in 2017, Google Q&A sits within the local Knowledge Panel. 

Here, search users can ask questions about a business and its services, giving enhanced information about a local business directly within the search results. 

You can also post your own questions and responses, but bear in mind they should be informational and helpful, not promotional or laden with keywords.

Engage customers with posts

GMB posts provide another engaging and creative way to enrich your local search results. 

Posts can almost be thought of in the same way as a social media post, but published on Google My Business rather than Facebook or LinkedIn. 

Each post can contain up to 300 words (though just 80 or so are displayed in the Knowledge Panel), along with images, a CTA button, and a link. You can use this space to share company updates, tell search users what’s new, or publish offers. 

Regularly using this feature enriches your SAB’s GMB listing and can help you win new business, along with sending optimization signals to Google. 

Encourage reviews (and respond to them)

It’s well established that reviews are an important part of the consumer decision-making process and help nurture trust, but they also play an important role in local search optimization. 

The addition of fresh new reviews (along with a response on your part) ticks a number of Google boxes, feeding it both fresh content and crowdsourced opinion on the trustworthiness, prominence, and credibility of your business. 

When you’re done with optimizing your GMB listing, why not explore how to grow your review presence? 

That’s it, folks!

Setting up a GMB listing for your SAB and conducting ongoing optimization tasks and audits are essential for local search and Maps visibility, but this process shouldn’t be complicated or overwhelming. 

The process of claiming your listing and providing required information is straightforward, though you do need to give careful thought to choosing a business category and defining service areas to ensure your whole zone is adequately represented. 

Simply inputting cities or zip codes covered doesn’t guarantee local search or Maps visibility but, if you follow our optimization tips, you’ll soon be well on your way to improved SAB visibility.

The post How to Set Up and Optimize a Service-Area Listing in Google My Business appeared first on BrightLocal.

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