If customers don't come to your address, Google treats you as a service-area business: remove the address from your profile and list the places you serve instead. You can add up to 20 service areas, by city, postal code or another named area, and Google says the whole area shouldn't stretch more than about two hours' drive from where you're based. A service-area business gets one profile for all of it. Everything below is from Google's own help on service areas and its profile guidelines, checked on 14 November 2026.
Service-area, storefront or hybrid?
Pick the type that matches how customers actually meet you. It decides whether your address shows.
| How you work | Google's type | Address on the profile | Service area |
|---|---|---|---|
| You go to the customer; nobody visits your base | Service-area business | Remove it | Yes, up to 20 areas |
| Customers come to you and you also travel or deliver | Hybrid | Show it, with staffed hours | Yes, optional |
| Customers only come to you | Storefront | Show it | No |
Google's own examples of service-area businesses are plumbers and cleaning services. Most plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical and pest control firms are service-area businesses, even when they run from a home address or a yard. A showroom that customers really visit during set hours makes you hybrid.
Set the service area, step by step
- 1Open your profileSign in to the account that manages it and choose Edit profile, then Location.
- 2Remove the addressOnly if customers don't come to you. Hybrid businesses keep it.
- 3Edit the service areaNext to Service area, choose Edit and add cities, postal codes or other areas. Up to 20.
- 4Stay within about two hoursGoogle's guideline for the outer edge, measured as driving time from your base.
- 5Save and waitAn approved edit can take up to 48 hours to appear.
Two details catch people out. You can't draw a radius: you list cities, postal codes or other named areas. And changes aren't instant: Google says an approved edit can take up to 48 hours to show.
List the places you actually want work from, not every town you'd ever drive to. Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence, and says there's no way to pay for a better local ranking. So expect to show best near your base and less far out, however large the area you enter.
The rules that get profiles suspended
- One profile for the whole area you serve. No extra profiles for nearby towns.
- No address shown if customers don't come to it.
- Areas listed by city, postal code or named area, not a radius.
- The outer edge within about two hours' drive of your base.
- Your real business name, with no service or city words added.
- No virtual office or mailbox as a location unless it's staffed in business hours.
A rented mailbox or an unstaffed virtual office in a town you want to rank in isn't a location under Google's guidelines, and it puts the whole profile at risk. If you open a real, staffed second branch with its own area, that branch can have its own profile.
What to fill in after the area
- Name: your real-world business name. "Smith Plumbing" is fine; "Smith Plumbing 24/7 Drain Cleaning Dallas" is not.
- Primary category: the trade you most want calls for, as specific as Google offers (Plumber, HVAC contractor, Roofing contractor). Add secondary categories only for work you really do.
- Phone: a number that gets answered. Show 24-hour hours only if a person really answers at night.
- Website and quote link: point them at the page for that service, not only your home page.
- Photos: real jobs, vans and crew, with no house numbers or faces without permission.
- Description: plain and factual, with no offers, prices or links.
For the wider picture of how the profile fits with your site, reviews and ads, read our home service marketing guide. For HVAC firms, HVAC SEO covers the profile alongside service pages.
Reviews on a service-area profile
Google allows you to ask every customer for a review with a link or a QR code. It doesn't allow a discount or gift in exchange, asking only the customers you expect to be happy, or pressing people while your crew is still there. The FTC's rule adds that an incentive can't depend on what the review says. When you reply, don't post the customer's address or job details: on a service-area profile, that's the one thing you've chosen to keep private for them too.
Keep it current
Recheck the area whenever you add or drop a town, hire in a new place or change trades. Our free Own-Your-Calls Pack has a one-page profile checklist plus the missed-call and lead-cost worksheets: download the PDF. If you'd rather hand the upkeep over, Gigabit runs it for home service businesses as a flat monthly service.
