Service area or street address: which to use on your listing

A plumber working out of a garage, a clinic on a high street, and a mobile mechanic who also has a workshop are three different kinds of business as far as a listing is concerned, and the wrong choice here is one of the most common reasons a profile gets suspended.

The three setups

• Storefront. You have premises, customers come to you, the address is shown on the listing and on the map.
• Service area. You travel to customers, the address is hidden, and you declare the areas you cover.
• Hybrid. Both are true: customers can come to you and you also travel. The address shows and a service area is set as well.

Almost every business fits cleanly into one of these. The trouble comes from businesses that would like to be in the first category and are actually in the second.

The rule that catches people out

Google's guidelines require a displayed address to be a location that is staffed during the hours you say you are open. Not a location you own. Not a location where your van is parked. Staffed, during those hours, by someone who could deal with a customer who turned up.

So a sole trader who leaves at 7am and returns at 6pm, with a listing showing a home address and hours of 7 to 6, is publishing a contradiction. The address is shown as somewhere a customer could go, at times when nobody is there.

What hiding your address actually does

Two things, and it is worth separating them from the third thing everybody assumes.

It removes the pin's street detail from public view, so customers cannot turn up at your house. And it lets you declare a service area, which tells Google and customers where you work. For wholly mobile trades such as locksmiths, this is not a compromise setup, it is the correct one.

What it does not do is free you from proximity. Google still knows where you are, and distance from the searcher remains one of the three factors it names. Setting a service area covering the whole state does not make you competitive across the whole state. This disappoints people, and it is better to be disappointed now than after six months of wondering.

The twenty area limit, and how to use it

You can list up to twenty service areas, by region, city or postcode. Most businesses fill all twenty out of a vague sense that more is better.

It is better to list the places you genuinely want work from and would happily drive to tomorrow. The service area is not a ranking lever you pull harder; it is a description of your business that a customer reads and that Google uses to understand you. Listing twenty areas when eight are realistic gives a less accurate picture, and it means the eight you actually care about sit alongside twelve that dilute them.

The hybrid case, which people get wrong in both directions

A business with a real, staffed premises that customers do sometimes visit, and which also travels, should show the address and set a service area. This is legitimate and it is the correct setup for a lot of workshops, salons that also do mobile work, and clinics that do home visits.

The mistake in one direction is hiding a perfectly good address out of caution, which throws away the map pin and the walk-in trade. The mistake in the other is claiming hybrid status for a home garage nobody visits, which is the suspension case again wearing a different hat.

The test: if a customer arrived unannounced during your stated hours, would someone deal with them? If yes, show the address. If no, hide it.

Changing from one to the other

1. 01Decide which of the three you actually are, using the test above.
2. 02Make the change once, on its own, and not in the same week as a name change or a category change. Two edits at once and you cannot tell which one caused what followed.
3. 03Set your hours to the hours the address claim is true for, if you are showing an address.
4. 04Update your website's contact page to match, including whether it shows a street address.
5. 05Expect a verification step. Have a utility bill or lease and photos of signage ready.

If you are already suspended, the recovery order is in this post, and the address is the first cause it works through. If you serve a wide area and are wondering how to cover it on your website, that is an on-page question rather than a listing one: one strong page per area you genuinely work in, never one per postcode you would like to.