Google Business Profile for tradies: how to set up and run a service area profile

If you travel to customers and they don't come to you, you're a service area business in Google's terms, and your profile (formerly Google My Business) should be set up that way.

Most trades fit this. If you also run a showroom or yard that customers visit, such as a tile shop or landscape supply, you're a hybrid business and can show that address too. Either way, Google wants one profile for your central base, not extra ones in nearby towns.

Google's rules come down to being real: one profile per real location, a hidden address for home based trades, and service areas you can actually reach.

• Hide your address if customers don't visit. Google says plainly that service area businesses should.
• Up to 20 service areas, set by suburb, city or postcode. You can't set a radius.
• About 2 hours' driving is the outer limit for the whole area, measured from your base.
• One profile per location. Duplicate or fake locations break the guidelines.
• No virtual offices or PO boxes. A rented mailing address you don't operate from isn't eligible.
• A local phone number is preferred over a central call centre number.

Use exactly the name you trade under in the real world, as it appears on your van, website, invoices and signage.

Google doesn't allow taglines, services, locations, phone numbers or web addresses in the name, and warns that adding unnecessary information could result in suspension. For example, "Smith Electrical" is fine, while "Smith Electrical Emergency Electrician Wollongong 24/7" is asking for trouble.

If your registered trading name already includes a place or a trade, that is your real world name. Google's test is whether you use it consistently, so keep it identical across the profile, site and paperwork.

Fill in every field you can with plain, accurate detail, because Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local results.

Categories and services tell Google what you do, which feeds relevance, one of the three main factors behind local results along with distance and prominence.

Choose the primary category that best describes the core of the business, and add others only for work you actually do. An electrician who installs split systems might add Air conditioning contractor, but not Solar energy contractor unless solar is part of the business.

Then list services in the customer's words: switchboard upgrades, smoke alarm installs, hot water unit replacements, blocked drains. Distance you can't change, and Google says prominence includes your number of reviews and links from other websites.

Add photos of real jobs, your team and your vans, and post short updates when your work or your season changes.

• Before and after shots of finished jobs, taken on your phone in good light.
• Your van with the signwriting showing, and the crew in uniform.
• Close ups of quality: neat cable runs, clean grout lines, a level slab, straight gutters.
• No stock photos. Customers spot them, and they undercut the trust real photos build.

Reply to every review, good or bad, briefly, politely and by name, because responding to reviews is one of Google's own tips for improving local ranking.

Google's advice is to keep replies short and simple, stay professional, be conversational rather than promotional, apologise when it's warranted and reply in good time. Replies are public, show as your business, and notify the reviewer, who can still change their review after reading yours. That's a good reason to handle a complaint calmly.

For getting more reviews in the first place, read how to get more Google reviews without being annoying, and check the Google review rules before you offer anything in return.

No. Google says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.

Google Ads can place a labelled paid listing above the results, but it stops when the budget does, and Google's Local Services Ads aren't offered in Australia at all. So be wary of any offer of a paid shortcut to the top of the map.

Ranking well comes from the profile work above, plus reviews, a solid website and time. The Google Maps ranking guide goes deeper, the free Google Maps rank checker shows where you sit today, and the free 15 second lead score quiz points to what's holding you back.