The distinction
Google has two formats. A business with a storefront address shows that address and is found mainly by people near it. A service-area business hides the address and instead lists the places or areas it serves. A third variant is the combination: a business that both receives customers and works on location.
The rule that goes with this is simple and frequently broken: an address may only be shown if customers can actually visit it during the stated opening hours. A residential address someone simply drives out from should be hidden.
Why too large a service area does harm
The temptation is to set the service area as wide as possible: more places, more chances. In practice it works the other way round. An area spanning half a province makes the profile less specific for every individual place within it, while proximity still counts. You gain nothing in extra places, and you lose relevance in the places you actually depend on.
We keep to a practical measure: the area the business genuinely reaches within a normal travel time, and where it has actually worked over the past year. That is usually smaller than the owner would name.
What you lose and what you get back
A service-area business loses the visibility that comes with a physical address on the map. What it gets in return is that the profile competes in places where the business has no premises. For an installer serving five municipalities, that is a better trade than an address on an industrial estate no one visits.
What it is not: a way to appear in places the business does not actually reach. That might gain something in the short term, and a profile under verification in the longer term.
The website alongside it
The profile is only half the picture. A service-area business needs one good page per service area on its website — not one per town. Three near-identical pages for three neighbouring towns weaken each other; one page that treats the region properly, with travel times, service area and the questions that actually come up there, performs better.
How we build that is on the local landing pages page. Regions where this question comes up most are areas with a lot of trades-based SME activity, such as Tilburg, Rotterdam and the Stedendriehoek.
The practical checklist
- Can customers actually visit the address during the stated opening hours? If not: hide the address.
- Only list areas the business has genuinely worked in over the past year.
- Keep the area within a normal travel time; wider is not better.
- One regional page on the site, not a row of thin place-name pages.
- Check after every change that the profile has not been placed under verification.
Bronnen
- Google, guidelines for representing your business on Google — rules for service-area businesses and for showing an address.
- Our own experience setting up service-area profiles for trades-based SMEs.