Google My Business: Service Area vs Address

Your business address is a key component of your Google My Business (GMB) listing, but what if you don’t actually offer products or provide services at the physical location? For example, a professional painting or landscaping company. Or, what if you provide some services and/or products at the physical location, but also extend your reach via delivery or house-call servicing?

With such businesses, the GMB address listing may not adequately extend the reach of local search engine optimization (SEO) results. In fact, if your service area extends far beyond the physical location of your business, your local SEO efforts on GMB may not reach a broad swath of your customer base. For example, if your business is based in Naples, FL, your GMB business address will only help boost local search engine results pages (SERP) for those looking for your services in and near Naples. Potential customers in the outlying areas, say from Fort Myers to Marco Island, will be much less likely to find your GMB profile.

This is a good example of what an SAB’s Google Maps listing looks like

Expand Your Reach with a Service-Area Business Listing

To get around this problem, GMB offers businesses the option to list themselves as a service-area business (SAB). Rather than just listing the physical business address, a SAB listing allows you to establish your service area based on up to 20 city names, counties, and/or Zip Code areas served. Existing GMB listings can be edited to add the SAB, while new GMB profiles can be designated as an SAB. Companies that provide customer service at both the physical location and remotely can include the business address and service area. Google recommends that companies not conducting business at their physical locations should only include the service area covered. 

Once you’ve set up your SAB listing on GMB, your business will more likely gain SERP traction in the outlying areas you have identified, and your business will show up in Google maps in the service areas identified.   

Optimize the Effectiveness of Your SAB Listing

Once you’ve set up your SAB listing, there are a number of things you can do to enhance its effectiveness in search results. Along with ranking highly in SERPs, you want to make sure that your GMB is not perceived as spam, which has increased significantly in all search results including GMB listings. Thus, to enhance local SEO and ensure that your SAB is not perceived as spam, optimize it with these tips:

• Encourage reviews and make sure you respond to them, as both actions help boost trust in your business while boosting SEO.
• Regularly upload new images and video to your GMB, which helps limit the perception of your listing being spam, encourages more clicks, and boosts SEO.
• Engage customers regularly with GMB posts. Similar to social media posts, you can share business news, announce special offers, and share images, while also including a call to action and/or links.
• Utilize Google Q & A, which allows you to answer questions from potential customers, which may be picked up by SERP.
• Make sure you choose the correct primary category and subcategory for your SAB listing.

Turn to Professionals for Google My Business Strategizing

As marketing experts with a solid track record of helping healthcare companies build powerful websites and online marketing campaigns, Moxxi Marketing can help your company figure out how to best optimize the power of Google My Business. To learn more about how Moxxi Marketing can help you with your healthcare-related online marketing,  Contact us today at 239.228.8837.