Originally posted to Scott McAndrew’s Blog: www.onlinemarketingperformance.com
Run a local business which doesn’t have a physical location but services a specific area? Is your service area so specific that defining it is more applicable than simply providing the address of your main office? Google’s Local Business Center wasn’t a friendly place in the past for those situations, at least until recently.
A new feature in Google’s Local Business Center now allows the business owner a few new options:
- The ability to strike the business address from one’s listing
- The ability to specify the areas where your company does business
Here’s a few local business examples where this new option works well:
- A mobile car detailing business
- A courier service that works in specific Zip codes
- A franchise business with rights only to specific cities or Zip codes
- A wedding florist who has no sales office but works regionally
Basically any business where the physical business location is less relevant (or irrelevant) but the service area is defined.
The settings are pretty simple. If you already have a Google Local Business listing, here’s what you need to do:
Setting Service Area in the Google Local Business Center
- Log in to Google and go to the Google Local Business Center
- From the Dashboard tab, click the Edit link beside the listing you wish to update
- Below the Basic Information heading there is now a new heading titled Service Areas and Location Settings
- Select the radio button labeled Yes, this business serves customers at their locations
- You can now specify if you wish your business address to appear or not as well as the area you service
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice new feature. Thanks for the heads up!
Scott, If I do consulting in 5 different cities, am I limited to one geographic location, or can I set up all 5?
David –
First, apologies for being lethargic with the reply – I didn’t see the comment or I would have answered promptly!
There are two different setups. One is where you have one singular business that offers services in multiple cities. So, if you have a business that is out of Dallas, say, and also does work in Austin, you could create one business entry and associate it with the two cities. That can work. But, in many situations it’s more advantageous (and appropriate) to add an individual “Location” (it’s an entirely unique entry to the first one).
In your situation, I’m almost certain without knowing more that you’ll want to have multiple listings.
For others, and for you, David, here’s a few situations where you’d want to have unique listings, as opposed to a single listing with a service area:
1. You have two+ physical offices with unique telephone numbers and you want to route calls to each local number.
2. You have two+ physical office locations that share a number (and area code), but the area served is non-contiguous (if you set up a ‘service area’ as it stands today, it makes the area contiguous. If you said your service area was Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Anchorage, it would create a triangle using those three city centers and call that your service area. If you don’t do business in Nevada, you’ve got a problem!).
3. You have two+ physical offices that offer different products or services. That’s pretty straightforward… You’d definitely want separate listings.
Luckily, Google Local (or “Places” at it will soon be known) makes it easy to set up multiple locations that you can check in on by logging in to the Google Local Business center with one login. In the Google Local Business Center, http://www.google.com/lbc, simply setup your first business, then, when you’re done, go back to the Dashboard and click “+ Add a new listing.” Just create a listing for the additional office location.
I think that’s what your after David. I hope I helped. If I didn’t answer your question, please let me know!