Service-area businesses on Google: hiding your home address

If you go to your customers and they do not come to you, Google lets you hide your street address and show the area you serve instead. This is called a service-area business. Plumbers, cleaners, mobile groomers, landscapers and many other trades run from home use it, and it keeps your home address off Google Maps. Your website should follow the same rule: show the towns you serve and your phone number, not your house.

Who counts as a service-area business

Google sorts local businesses into three kinds:

Storefront businesses, where customers visit you: a bakery, a dental office, a shop.
Service-area businesses, where you visit customers: a plumber, a house cleaner, a mobile mechanic, a pressure washing company, a mobile notary.
Hybrid businesses, which do both: an auto repair shop that also does roadside calls, a pet groomer with a salon and a van.

If customers never come to your address, you should be set up as a service-area business, and your address should be hidden. Google's guidelines say you should not show an address where you do not serve customers in person. A home address shown publicly for a business that does not receive customers there can lead to problems with your profile, not only with your privacy.

If you have a real shop or office that customers visit during set hours, keep the address showing, and add your service areas as well.

How to set it up in your Google Business Profile

You need to manage the profile.

Sign in to the Google account that manages it, search Google for your business name, or go to business.google.com.
Click "Edit profile" and find the "Location" section, which includes your business address.
Turn off the option to show the address to customers, or clear the address field if that is how the screen presents it. Google keeps your address privately for verification, but customers will not see it.
Open "Service area" and add the places you serve. You can add towns, cities, counties or ZIP codes. Google allows up to 20 areas.
Save. The change may take a little time to show, and Google may ask you to verify again.

If you are setting up a new profile, Google asks early on whether customers visit your location. Answer no, and it walks you through adding service areas instead.

How far should your service area go?

Google's guidance is that your service area should not extend much beyond about two hours' driving from where you are based. In practice, list the places you genuinely go and want work from. Listing an entire state when you mostly work in two counties does not help: Google still weighs where you are actually based, and customers far away who call you are the ones you may have to turn down.

Verification without a public address

Google still needs to confirm that your business is real and where it is based. Depending on the business, it might ask for:

A video verification, where you record a short, continuous video showing your location, your work vehicle or equipment, and something that shows you manage the business, such as tools or a business license.
A phone or email code, for some businesses.
A postcard to your address, less common now.

Your address is used for this privately. It does not appear on your listing once you have hidden it.

What you cannot do: use a PO box, a mailbox store or a virtual office as your business address. Google does not accept those, and profiles that use them can be suspended.

What to show on your website instead

The same thinking applies to your website. If customers never visit, there is no reason to put your home address in the footer or on the contact page, and good reasons not to.

Instead, show:

Your phone number, large and tappable, at the top of every page.
Your service area in words, such as "Serving Boulder County: Boulder, Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette and Superior." Put it in the footer, on the contact page, and near the top of your home page.
A contact form so people can reach you without an address.
Your general base, if you like, as a town: "Based in Longmont, Colorado." That is enough for people to know you are local.
A map of your service area, as a picture or simple shaded image rather than a pin on your house.

A dedicated page that lists the towns you cover, with a sentence or two about each, helps customers check quickly whether you come to them. A service area page that tells customers where you work shows how to write one.

Keeping your details consistent

You will often read that your name, address and phone should match everywhere. For a service-area business, that means: your business name, your phone number and your town or service area should match across your Google profile, your website and your directories. If you hide the address on Google, hide it on Yelp, Facebook, Angi and your website too where those sites allow it. Most of them now have a "service area" or "hide address" option. Name, address and phone that match everywhere covers the rest.

What shows up instead of a pin

Once your address is hidden, your Google listing shows a shaded area on the map instead of a pin, and the profile says the areas you serve. Customers can still call, visit your website, read reviews and request a quote. Your place in the map results depends on many things, including where you are actually based, which Google still knows. Hiding the address does not move you closer to a town you want more work from. Nobody can promise where you appear; what you can do is make it plain which towns you serve, on the profile and on your site.

Common mistakes

Showing the home address "just in case". If customers do not visit, hide it.
Making several profiles for different towns without a real location in each. Google treats that as a guideline violation.
Using a friend's office or a coworking desk as a fake storefront to appear in another town.
Listing dozens of towns you rarely serve. Pick the ones you actually want.
Forgetting the website. The profile hides the address, but the website's footer still shows it.

What to do this week

Open your Business Profile and check whether your address is showing. If customers never visit, hide it.
Add up to 20 service areas that match where you really work.
Look at your website's footer and contact page, and replace any home address with your service area and phone number.
Search for your home address in quotes and fix any directory that shows it.
Write down your main towns once, and use that same list of towns on your profile, your website and your directories.

If your website still shows your home address and you cannot change it easily, you can see your site rebuilt first, with your service area and phone in place of the address.