Best Practice for GMB Service Areas?

[greenfiend]

Hi all,

As I'm filling out my GMB listing, under Service Areas, is it better to input the individual cities I service (or go as far as to do business), or would it be equally effective for my listing in locals if I input just the county as a general catch-all area that I service?

 

[Contractor]

The service areas that you choose in Google My Business only determine where the red highlighted area on the map will be. They have no optimization value so it doesn’t matter how you input them.

 

[Phil Rozek]

@greenfiend, it doesn't seem to matter for rankings purposes either way, because the whole "service areas" field doesn't seem to affect rankings. So I'd specify the county, just because it's a little easier to add to (if your service area expands) or modify.