Google Business Profile for Service-Area Businesses

If you go to your customers rather than the other way round, as a plumber, electrician, cleaner or mobile groomer does, you are a service-area business. Google has specific rules for how to list one, and getting them right protects your profile and keeps your home address private.

This article is part of our local SEO guide for small businesses. It summarises Google's published guidelines, checked on 20 September 2026.

How Google describes a service-area business

Google's guidelines describe a service-area business as one that operates from a central location but serves customers elsewhere. The rules say to use:

• one profile for the central office or location, with a designated service area
• a service area that doesn't extend farther than about two hours of driving time
• a hidden address if you operate from a residential location, so customers don't see it

Setting it up

1. List your base as the location, then hide the address if it is your home. Customers see your service area instead of your street.
2. Choose the areas you actually serve. Name the towns or areas you regularly travel to, within the two-hour guideline.
3. Pick accurate categories. Google says complete, accurate details help it understand what you do, which affects relevance in local ranking.
4. Add the same details to your website. Your service areas, phone number and hours should match. See local business schema markup for how to mark that up.

What not to do

• Don't invent a shopfront. Google's guidelines expect a profile to represent the business as it really operates, and an address you don't operate from doesn't.
• Don't create profiles for towns you only visit. The guideline is one profile for your central location.
• Don't put the service area in the business name. The name should match how your business is represented in the real world. See the naming rules.

Why relevance and distance matter to you

Google ranks local results using relevance, distance and prominence. Distance is judged from your business's location, so an accurate base matters even for a mobile business. Reviews and links to your website feed prominence, so ask every happy customer for a review. Our article on how to get more Google reviews covers the rules.

Follow up on the enquiries this brings

Being found only helps if you reply quickly. See how fast to respond to a lead and plumbing lead follow-up automation.