If you run your business from home and travel to your customers, set up your Google Business Profile as a service-area business: enter your home address so Google can verify you, choose not to show it to the public, and list the towns you serve instead. Your profile then appears in Google Search and Maps for those areas without your house on the map. This is what Google’s own guidelines tell you to do. Renting a virtual office or a mailbox to get a pin on the map is what they tell you not to do.
The details below come from Google’s published guidelines for representing your business and its help pages for service-area businesses, checked on November 11, 2026. Google changes the screens from time to time, so the button names may differ slightly from what you see.
First: are you eligible?
Google’s rule is that a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. That happens one of two ways: customers come to you, or you go to them. A plumber, an electrician, a mobile detailer, a cleaning service, a home inspector or a lawn care company working out of a house all qualify, because they travel to the customer. A business that only sells online and never meets a customer in person does not qualify.
Google describes three set-ups:
- Storefront: customers come to your address, and it has permanent signage.
- Service-area business: you visit or deliver to customers and do not serve them at your address.
- Hybrid: both. A shop with a counter that also makes house calls shows its address and a service area.
If customers do not come to your home, you are a service-area business.
Setting it up, step by step
- Sign in with a Google account the business owns. Not an employee’s personal account and not your web designer’s. You can add managers later.
- Enter your real business name. Exactly as it appears on your truck, your invoices and your license. Google does not permit extras in the name, such as a town, a service list or a slogan.
- Pick your primary category. More on this below. It is the most important choice on the profile.
- When asked whether customers can visit a location, say no. You will still give Google your address for verification. Choosing no keeps it off your public profile. If you already have a profile showing your home address, edit the location and remove or hide the address there.
- Add your service areas. You can set up to 20, chosen by city, postal code or other named area. You cannot draw a radius. Google’s guidance is that the overall area should not stretch farther than about two hours’ drive from where you are based.
- Add your phone number and website. Use the same number that is on your site and every other listing.
- Set your hours. The hours you actually answer the phone and take work.
- Verify. See the next section.
- Finish the profile. Services, a plain description of what you do and where, and real photos of your work, your vehicle and your team.
A local example: a home-based contractor in Oxford might list Oxford, Anniston, Jacksonville, Weaver, Alexandria, Ohatchee, Eastaboga, Lincoln, Talladega, Piedmont and Gadsden. All of those are well inside the two-hour guidance, and it is still only eleven of the twenty.
Choosing categories
Google’s test is to finish the sentence “This business is a ...” and not “this business has” or “this business does.”
- Be as specific as you can. If “Plumber” exists, do not settle for a broad one like “Contractor.”
- Use as few as you can. The primary category should describe the core of the business. Add a secondary category only for a real, separate line of work.
- Do not use categories as keywords. Individual jobs you perform belong in the services section, not in the category list.
- Pick from the list. You cannot write your own. Type a few words and see what Google offers.
Verification
Google chooses the verification method for you, and you cannot change it. The methods it lists are a video recording, a phone call or text, email, a live video call, or a postcard mailed to your address. It recommends the video recording when that option is offered, and it says reviews take up to five business days, occasionally longer. You may be asked to verify with more than one method.
For a video, Google wants to see three kinds of proof: where you are, the tools of your trade, and that you actually run the business. For a home-based service business, plan to show:
- A street sign or surroundings that match the address you entered.
- Your work vehicle, especially if it has your business name on it, and your tools or equipment.
- Something only the owner would have: a business license, an invoice book, branded paperwork, or unlocking the vehicle or workshop.
Record it in one continuous take, in daylight, without rushing.
What not to do
- Do not use a P.O. box or a mailbox at a remote location. Google’s guidelines say these are not acceptable addresses.
- Do not list a virtual office. The guidelines say a service-area business cannot list one unless that office is staffed during business hours. An address where nobody from your business works is not eligible for a profile.
- Do not use a co-working space as a storefront unless you have clear signage there, receive customers there during business hours and your own staff are present.
- Do not create a second profile for another town. A service-area business gets one profile for the whole area it serves. Extra profiles in towns where you have no staffed location break the rules.
- Do not show your home address if customers do not come there. Google’s guidance is to hide it, and it is better for your family’s privacy too.
- Do not add words to your business name. “Your Business Plumbing Oxford AL Water Heaters” is not your name.
- Do not buy reviews or review your own business.
Profiles that break these rules can be suspended, and getting a suspended profile back takes time you would rather spend working.
After it is live
- Ask each happy customer for a review, and reply to every one.
- Add photos of finished jobs regularly.
- Update hours for holidays.
- Keep the name, phone number and service towns matching your website and other listings. Consistency is what helps search engines and AI assistants trust they have the right business.
- Give each service and each main town a page on your website, so the profile has something specific to point to.
One honest caveat: without a public address, your visibility is tied to the areas you list and to where the searcher is, and no setting guarantees a position on the map. We never promise a ranking.
If you would rather not do this yourself
Our Growth plan includes your Google Business Profile set up and kept current, the same name, address and phone number on every listing site, and review alerts with a drafted reply for each new review. See local SEO, websites for contractors, or ask for a free preview of your new site.