Author: Krystal Taing
Service area businesses (SABs) are one of the most common types of local business, but unlike traditional brick-and-mortar locations, they don’t have a physical storefront to help them increase awareness. So, they rely on local SEO to help get them in front of potential customers.
When it comes to optimizing search visibility for SABs, there’s a lot of nuance to master (compared to brick-and-mortar businesses). In this blog post, I’ll walk you through that nuance, how to leverage third-party platforms to extend your local SEO, as well as advanced tactics.
Table of contents:
Local SEO: Service area businesses vs. brick and mortar stores
Service area businesses provide their services at the customer’s location, which could range from residential homes to commercial establishments. Examples include plumbing services, home repair, and cleaning services.
The broad geographical area SABs cover, coupled with the lack of a physical storefront, pose specific SEO challenges—the most prominent challenge being how to effectively target and reach potential customers scattered across different locales.
The absence of a physical store location is what makes local SEO for SABs so important. It ensures that these businesses appear in search results when potential customers in their service areas look for relevant services. This targeted visibility is essential to driving inquiries and leads, and securing business.
While local SEO for both brick and mortar businesses as well as SABs is essentially the same discipline, SABs will have a more specific set of considerations to optimize for (in addition to following established local SEO best practices).
The fundamentals of local SEO for SABs
Local SEO for SABs revolves around several key factors:
Relevance (i.e., how well your business reflects the searcher’s intent)
Distance (i.e., physical proximity to the searcher)
Prominence (i.e., the popularity of your business)
These factors help search engines determine which businesses to show in local search results.
Furthermore, setting up and optimizing a Google Business Profile (GBP) is vital for SABs. It allows businesses to specify their service areas and ensures they appear in Google searches from those regions.
In addition to GBP, SABs must manage their listings on platforms that allow them to hide their business addresses (while still showing the area they serve), such as certain local business directories (e.g., your local Chamber of Commerce and Manta Business Directory).
Use platforms to promote your SAB: Google, Facebook, and other local listing guidelines
Each platform has its own guidelines for how SABs should represent themselves. Typically, if the platform supports search-based functions, it will also support listings or profiles for SABs. However, some platforms that are more focused on maps and driving directions, such as Apple Maps, will have different guidelines or may be unable to support SABs.
Here are some platform guidelines that every SAB owner should know:
Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile provides specific functionality and guidance for service area businesses. Most notably:
SABs can only create one profile for the metropolitan area that they serve.
SAB owners can specify their service areas by city, postal code, or another type of area. Each listing can serve up to 20 service areas.
The boundaries of your overall service area should not exceed about two hours of driving time from where your business is based.
Avoid listing virtual offices unless they are staffed during business hours.
An example of a prototypical SAB that fits the criteria above could be a cleaning service that operates from a central office and serves a specific area. This listing should have one profile for the office, clearly stating the service area.
Hybrid businesses (i.e., businesses with a physical location that also provide on-site services, like an auto repair shop with a garage and roadside assistance), on the other hand, can designate a storefront address as well as a service area.
Google will show searchers your address as well as highlight your service areas on your profile (as shown below).
Google uses your business details and other sources to decide how to show your address. These sources can include additional content found on the web about your business and areas it serves, as well as customer feedback directly from Maps.
For individual SABs (not multi-location), this is pretty straightforward to understand and manage because your business is represented by (and limited to) one service-area business profile.
For businesses with multiple different locations (i.e., chain businesses/franchises; like a chain of pest control service branches with separate offices in different cities), you can have one profile per location. As is the case with an individual SAB, the service area for each profile shouldn’t extend more than two hours’ driving time from your base (though some businesses might need larger areas).
If you run your business from home (like a plumber might), make sure to hide your home address on your GBP. When you hide your address, Google will display an outline on the map showing your service area. The ‘directions’ action button will also be removed from your profile.
Facebook also supports service area businesses. The platform only provides very light guidance to users managing their business pages, stating:
“If you don’t have a location where people can visit your business, edit your Page info to hide your street address on computers and mobile devices.” — Facebook
Once you configure this setting, you will see only the city and state displayed on your business’s Facebook page.
Additional sites and platforms
One of the challenges facing service area businesses is that many sites require an address in order to list your business. This means if you have an address that you do not want customers potentially showing up at (such as a residential address), then you are limited in terms of the sites and platforms you can use to represent your business.
SAB-friendly platforms include:
Yelp
Angi
Nextdoor
Yellow Pages
CitySquares
DexKnows
Avvo
Thumbtack
Unfortunately, even though iPhones account for a massive share of mobile devices, Apple Maps currently only supports businesses with a published address, so only storefronts or hybrid businesses can publish their business listings here.
Recently, however, Apple introduced some support for SABs. Now, these businesses can register with Apple Business Connect, a platform that allows them to manage their brand visibility on iPhones and other iOS devices. Through Apple Business Connect, SABs can display and customize their business name, logo, and other branding elements in Apple applications, such as Mail, Phone, and Tap to Pay.
Advanced local SEO tactics for SABs
To further enhance local SEO, SABs should focus on the following tactics:
Build local citations — Getting listed in industry-specific directories boosts SEO and places your business in front of potential customers looking for specific services (meaning those customers may be more likely to convert).
Based on your industry, you can build citations on sites like Yelp, Avvo, and Thumbtack. Look at your website referral traffic (in Google Analytics 4 or your analytics platform of choice) for a helpful indicator of where customers are already discovering you. This can help you prioritize which sites to focus on first.
Build up and manage your customer reviews — Customer reviews build trust, influence rankings, and are crucial to your local SEO success. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews and respond promptly to any feedback. Businesses that provide services to their customers (as opposed to a product), cannot overlook the impact and importance of consistent and positive reviews.
Creating and optimizing local pages — This is crucial for enhancing visibility and customer engagement for service area businesses, especially if you operate multiple locations in different regions. In order to build local service area pages that rank and convert, you should:
Create unique local pages for each service your business offers (e.g., a catering service might create pages for each of the types of events they cater).
Highlight local-specific information that resonates with the audience, including details about local landmarks, events, and community involvement.
Add unique photos that are relevant to that location and its services.
Encourage customer reviews and testimonials specific to each location.
Measure your local SEO for continued success
The only way to know that your optimizations are paying off is to measure your efforts. Focus on KPIs such as:
Local SEO metrics | Metrics that SABS should also focus on |
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Service area businesses typically want to drive new customers or bookings, so in addition to ranking, track and optimize how many inquiries you are driving. Even as an SAB, you can utilize common SEO tools to monitor your performance:
Google Analytics — Track and analyze website traffic from local search queries, helping to understand how users find and interact with your site.
Google Search Console — Monitor and report on local search visibility, keyword rankings, and issues affecting performance in local search results.
Google Business Profile Insights — Measure customer interactions, such as calls, direction requests, and views on Google Maps and Search.
Interpreting the data from these tools is essential. Regularly review metrics to identify trends and areas for improvement. Use this data to refine your strategies, ensuring continued SEO success. By consistently analyzing these KPIs and using the right tools, you can optimize your local SEO efforts effectively, leading to improved visibility and customer engagement.
Unlock local SEO potential for your SAB
As is the case with traditional SEO, you’ll need to adapt best practices for your particular business and niche. There’s always an element of trial and error involved, but you can maximize your efforts by familiarizing yourself with tips and guidance from local SEO experts.
For further reading, here are some additional resources that can help your service area business increase its organic search visibility:
Krystal Taing - Global Director of Pre-sales Solutions, UberallKrystal Taing is the Global Director of Pre-sales Solutions at Uberall. She is a Google Business Profile Platinum Product Expert and faculty member at LocalU. She helps brands at managing hybrid customer experiences.