If you are one of the 31 million new businesses established in 2020, and you're working out of your home office (cause that's always been a thing, but since Covid-19, it's become more of a thing!)
BUT.... you do NOT want your residence listed in Google My Business!
So, how do you setup Google My Business without listing your private home address?
You must start with a Google My Business Listing.
Without your Google My Business listing established, the question you came here to get an answer about is pointless.
Starting with setting up your GMB account is Step #1
List Your Business as a Service Area Business STEP 2
There's a way inside of your Google My Business setup that allows you to list your business as a service-area business. It states you do not serve customers at your business address, but that you deliver services at your client or customer's address.
Inside the Info area within your Google My Business Profile. Once there you’ll then see a space to edit your address and then to “Add a service area.”
These are called Service-area business: These are businesses that visits or delivers to customers directly, but doesn’t serve customers at their business address.
Make Sure You Fully Optimize Your Google Business Profile STEP 3
Without a doubt one of the most effective steps you can take for your home service business to rank well in local searches on Google is to make sure to fully optimize your profile.
What that means is simply filling out EVERY section on the left side of the screen... from the Home down to website.
I've seen so many of our clients make the mistake of only providing the business name and a zip code. They assume that's all Google needs.
The more information you can provide for Google, the better and more accurate the search engine can be in ranking your pages, and helping your future customers find you relevant to whatever it is they're searching for.
Google is reluctant to show listings that aren’t useful or trustworthy.
In other words.... Help Google, help you!
It's important to know that just because you don't have a traditional brick and mortar based business, you can still do really well in Google Local search.
Make sure to include the following information within your Google My Business profile
- Name
- Contact info
- Category
- From the business
- Photos
- Questions & Answers
- Reviews
- Posts
As with all things, there are no guarantees, BUT... I will always say that anytime you apply current SEO Best Practices and Industry standards, you will see progress and performance.
There's never just 1 tactic or thing to apply that improves our findability.
Help your future customers find you. Start today if you never thought about your business profile in Google before. There's no time limit or anything that says having a GMB profile live for more than a year or two without fully optimizing it will forever handicap your ability to perform well in Google Local Search.
My challenge to you is, block out one hour in your week and optimize your Google Business profile!
Let me know in the comments below if you'd like a copy of my Local SEO Checklist for this year!