Google Business Profile without a shopfront

Can you have a Google Business Profile without a shopfront?

Yes, as long as you meet your customers in person. Google calls a business that visits or delivers to customers, but doesn’t serve them at its own address, a service-area business. You keep a real address on file so Google can verify you, hide it from the public, and list up to 20 areas you serve.

Which type of business are you?

Google sorts every profile into one of three types. Your type decides whether your address shows, and whether you add service areas.

Not sure which you are? Answer these in order.

1. 1Do you meet your customers face to face, at your place or theirs?

   NoOnline-only businesses can’t have a profile. Put the work into your website instead: see how to make your website SEO friendly.

2. 2Can customers visit your address during your hours, with your sign up and your staff there?

   NoYou’re a service-area business. Hide your address and add the areas you serve.

3. 3Do you also travel or deliver to customers?

   NoYou’re a shopfront business. Show your address. You don’t need service areas.

4. Yes to all threeYou’re a hybrid business. Show your address and add service areas as well.

What customers see, and what stays private

With your address hidden, your profile looks like any other, except there’s no pin. Google Maps outlines the areas you serve instead.

One side effect: with no pin, people scrolling around the map won’t see you on the map itself, only in the list of results. That’s normal for a service-area business, and it doesn’t mean your profile is missing.

How to set up a profile without showing your address

Setting up is quick. Verifying takes longer, so it has its own section below. For the full walkthrough, see how to get your business on Google Maps.

1. Go to business.google.com/add and enter your business name. Use the name on your van, invoices and sign. Google’s rules don’t allow extra words, like your town or your services.

2. Choose your main category. It’s the most important choice you’ll make here. See choosing your Google Business Profile category.

3. When Google asks if you want to add a location customers can visit, choose No. That’s what makes you a service-area business.

4. Add the areas you serve. Start typing a town, a county or a Dublin postal district, and pick it from the list Google suggests.

5. Add your phone number and website, then verify. Google still asks for your address so it can verify you. It isn’t shown to customers.

Set your hours for when you answer the phone and take jobs. If you only work by appointment, Google’s guidelines say not to list opening hours at all.

Already on Google with your address showing?

If customers don’t come to you, Google’s guidelines say to hide your address. On a verified profile that’s a switch in your settings, not a fresh start.

1. Open your profile while signed in on Google Search or Maps, and select Edit profile.

2. Go to Location, then Business location, and select the edit icon.

3. Turn off “Show business address to customers” and save.

4. Under Service area, add the places you cover. You can add up to 20.

Your address stays on file, so you keep your reviews and history. Google reviews changes like this, and approved service-area edits can take up to 48 hours to show. Don’t delete the profile and start again: you’d lose your reviews.

How to choose your service areas

List up to 20 places where you really work, named the way your customers name them. Keep the whole area within about two hours’ drive of your base.

Both limits come from Google’s help page on managing your service areas.

• Use the names customers useIn Dublin that’s often a postal district, like Dublin 6 or Dublin 15. Elsewhere it’s the town, or the county if you cover most of it.
• Pick towns over townlandsTwenty small townlands use up all your slots and cover less ground than a handful of towns.
• Forget the radiusGoogle no longer lets you set a radius around your base. An old radius area can’t be edited, so replace it with named places.
• Only list places you’ll go toService areas tell customers where you work. If you wouldn’t take a job in a town, leave it off.

How to verify when you work from home

Google chooses how you verify. If you’re offered a video, it has to be one continuous, unedited take of at least 30 seconds, filmed live: Google doesn’t accept pre-recorded videos.

This shot list covers what Google asks a service-area business to show.

1. 1
   Where you’re basedStreet signs or landmarks near your address

   Working from home? Google says signs and landmarks in your immediate neighbourhood are fine. Avoid filming empty land or places with nothing to identify them.

2. 2
   What you doYour tools, equipment or products

   The professional kit you actually use for the work.

3. 3
   That it’s yoursUnlock your branded van, or do part of a job

   Google wants to see you doing the work, or getting into something only the business has access to.

4. 4
   Paperwork, if you have itAn invoice, utility bill or business permit

   The name on it has to match the name on your profile.

Keep out of shot: other people’s faces, bank account, tax and ID numbers, and private information about you or anyone else.

In Ireland, this trips up sole traders whose trading name isn’t their own name, because bills in your own name won’t match your profile. You can register a trading name with the Companies Registration Office using form RBN1 (RBN1A for a partnership, RBN1B for a company). That gives you a certificate in that name. Invoices with your trading name on them help too.

If Google offers you a phone call, text or email instead, see step 3 of how to get your business on Google Maps.

What’s allowed, and what gets profiles suspended

Most of Google’s rules come down to one idea: one profile per business, at a real place you work from.

The full list is in Google’s guidelines for representing your business.

Your business name follows the same rule as everyone else’s: the name you trade under, with nothing added. “Murphy Plumbing” is fine. “Murphy Plumbing Cork, 24/7 Emergency Plumber” isn’t.

Will hiding your address hurt your ranking?

It can make some difference, but it’s still the right call. Google says to hide your address if customers don’t visit you. And a suspended profile costs you far more than a few places on the map.

Google ranks local results on relevance, distance and prominence. It doesn’t say how it measures distance when your address is hidden. In practice, service-area businesses tend to rank best close to the address they verified with.

Sterling Sky, a local SEO agency, published a test on a home-services client. Its rankings for one main keyword dropped while its address was hidden, and came back when the address was shown again. That’s one small test, and it’s no reason to show an address customers can’t visit.

What helps you show up further from home

• The right main categoryRelevance starts here. See choosing your Google Business Profile category.
• Reviews from customers across your areaReal reviews build prominence. See how to get more Google reviews.
• A page for each area you work in regularlyWith real jobs and photos from there, not the same text with the town name swapped. See how to write a service page that ranks.
• The same name and number everywhereOn every Irish directory you’re listed on. See the best business directories in Ireland.

More on all of this in how to rank higher on Google Maps.

If your profile gets suspended

1. Fix whatever broke the rules first, like a virtual office address, a home address showing when customers never visit, or extra words in your name.

2. Appeal through Google’s Business Profile appeals tool, signed in with the Google Account that owns the profile.

3. Add evidence with your business name and address on it. Google lists business registration, a business licence, tax certificates and utility bills. Have your files ready first: Google has given a 60-minute window to submit them in the past.

4. Don’t create a new profile while you wait. Google says not to while an appeal is under review, and it emails you its decision.

Our free Profile Rescue Kit walks you through all of this: it finds the likely cause, lists the documents to gather and writes your appeal.

When to get help

Most people can set up a service-area profile themselves. It’s worth getting help in three cases. Hiding your address got the profile suspended, video verification keeps failing, or you only ever show up near home.

That’s what our Google Business Profile management covers, and the free audit will show you where you stand now. Profile management comes with every monthly SEO plan, from €250 a month plus VAT. More in our Google Business Profile guides.

Questions people ask

Something else on your mind? Email info@leadsireland.com.