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Glossary

Service-area business

A service-area business goes to its customers, or delivers to them, instead of serving them at its own address. On Google it shows the area it serves in place of a street address.

Also called SAB.

By NightshiftDirect Research. Published . Updated .

Who counts

Google's help page puts it plainly: a service-area business visits or delivers to customers but does not serve them at its business address, and plumbers are one of the examples it gives (Google Business Profile Help). Most home trades fit that description.

Start with where customers are served. A workshop nobody visits or a spare bedroom used as an office is where you work from, and neither one turns you into a storefront.

How the profile works

Take the street address off the profile, so people see your area instead of the place you work from (Google Business Profile Help). Then name the places you cover by city, postal code or another kind of area, up to 20 of them. A radius drawn around your base is not accepted, and Google says the whole area should sit within about 2 hours of driving from where the business is based (same page).

You get one profile for all of it, however many towns the area takes in (same page).

Businesses that do both

Some businesses serve people at their premises and also go out to them, such as a glass repair shop with a fitting bay and a mobile van. Google calls these hybrid businesses, and its page on service areas covers them as well (Google Business Profile Help). If that sounds like you, read the hybrid part of that page before you put an address on the listing.

What does not qualify

A virtual office or a mailbox in a town where you do not work is not eligible as a location (guidelines). Renting one to reach a new area gives you nothing Google will accept.

What your website should say

The profile holds your list of areas, but customers read your website, so name the towns there too. The scan's C3 check looks for your home city in the homepage title and main heading. Your other towns go on a page about where you work, so a customer sees at once whether you come to them.

Give a town its own page only when you have something true to say about working there, such as the jobs you do most in it or how its permits work.

Questions

Can I have a separate profile for each town I serve?

No, not from one base. Google gives a service-area business one profile for its whole area (Google Business Profile Help), so add the towns as service areas on it and name them on your website. A second profile needs a second location where you really operate, since the guidelines allow one profile per location (guidelines).

I run the business from home. Will Google show my house?

Not once you clear the address. The guidelines ask a service-area business to hide it (guidelines), so a plumber working from a home office keeps the house off the listing and shows the service area in its place.

What if some customers do come to us?

A visitor now and then does not by itself mean you should show your address. Google's rule to remove it covers businesses that serve nobody there (Google Business Profile Help), and the same page covers hybrid businesses. Until you have read that part and know your premises fit, keep the address off and show only the service area.

Where this fits in our work

We handle this as part of Google Business Profile management: Your Business Profile kept complete, accurate and active every week, from hours and categories to posts and photos.

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