Service areas are a great way to set up a business profile if you don’t want to display your physical address, or if your business operates outside of where your business is located. An example of this might be a service based business that does on-site or remote consulting, a plumber who works in specific geographical area, or a mail order business that sends packages to other areas.
By the end of this lesson, you will understand how service areas work for Google My Business, and if it’s applicable you will have set up a service area for your business.
Service areas are intended to show areas that you do business in. This is particularly helpful if you choose not to show your company’s address (for example you have a work-from-home business, or a warehouse that’s not open to the public), but it’s also great for sales people who work in areas outside the main office area, and businesses that do work in different cities that they don’t have a physical location in.
The main benefit of this is that you get to harness the power of Google Local search in your search engine results pages. As you’ll learn in our SEO lesson, search intent is one of the key drivers behind Google’s algorithm. Typing “Plumber” into a search will bring up local plumbers first since the chances are you don’t want to just understand the concept of a plumber.
Because of the way Google’s algorithms work, businesses with physical locations and map pins in an area will have a slight advantage over a business who operates in the same place as a service area. This is because the map pins, and current ads will display before others. If your business has less local competition, say “Scrapbooking Supplies” vs “Plumber”, you’ll have a greater chance of showing up higher.
Your search engine ranking is dependent on more than 200 factors, of which Google My Business is just one of them. However, having a service area will help a business show up in a search for your specific business name.