Google My Business - Service Area Towns

[Ampere]

I'm curious if anyone noticed this. When entering the service area of your business in Google My Business, it allows you to enter the town in multiple ways.

f you type in the zip code, the town comes up as Town, State, Zip.
If you enter the town name, the town comes up as Town, County, State.

Here is an example directly from GMB:



Has anyone experimented with this? Would one way come up more when customers enter the zip code? Would it help to enter both for every town? Or would that be spammy?

 

[Ampere]

No one? I figured this would be part of optimizing My Business?

What do you mean when they say to optimize your My Business listing? There doesn't seem to be many little tweaks to make, that I can see.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Ampere,

Sorry for the delayed response.

Don't add every city and zip or even more than one. 1) It won't help you rank in other areas. 2) Google will put your map marker in middle of all the areas, could be in a lake or out in the forest.

Best practice is to just use your zip with a 20 mile radius. You generally won't rank beyond that anyway.

And be sure if you don't have a walk in office and mainly see clients at their location to do the settings right so it hides your address. (Ask if you need help.)

"What do you mean when they say to optimize your My Business listing? There doesn't seem to be many little tweaks to make"

One of the most important as far as ranking goes is choosing the best category.
Don't enter a bunch just the best 1 or 2.

 

[Ampere]

Linda, thank you!

I just want to confirm this. You are saying that I should not list the 15 small towns that I work in and that I have landing pages for on my website. Instead, I should just set the radius (in my situation, it would be only a 10 mile radius)? That would yield better results than listing the towns individually?


For those other things, where it says "I deliver goods and services to my customers at their location" I chose the "YES" checkbox. And for "I also serve customers at my business address. (Your address will be hidden from the public if this box isn't checked.)" I unchecked the checkbox.

And the category I chose "Electrician" and for the additional category I chose "Contractor".

Is that all correct?

Thank you again, I appreciate the help!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Linda, thank you!

I just want to confirm this. You are saying that I should not list the 15 small towns that I work in and that I have landing pages for on my website. Instead, I should just set the radius (in my situation, it would be only a 10 mile radius)? That would yield better results than listing the towns individually?

Yes, that's typically best. Again these settings have no impact on ranking at all. It just shows customers the areas you serve by highlighting that area on maps and search.

For those other things, where it says "I deliver goods and services to my customers at their location" I chose the "YES" checkbox. And for "I also serve customers at my business address. (Your address will be hidden from the public if this box isn't checked.)" I unchecked the checkbox.

Yes, correct.

And the category I chose "Electrician" and for the additional category I chose "Contractor".

I would remove "Contractor" and leave only your primary category. (For a variety of reasons.)

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

 

[Ampere]

I see what you're saying.

So what helps a local service company like me rank in those other towns?

For example, if I search for "Townname electrician" of a town a few miles away, I won't come up in the 3-pack but if you click "More Places" I come up in the 6th position in the list next to the map. How is that ranked?

Thanks!

 

[Linda Buquet]

There are over 200 different ranking factors and most aren't on your GMB listing.

Even if you were optimized on all those other levels, it's difficult to rank in other cities because one of the biggest ranking factors is proximity. And even thought address does not show publicly Google knows were you are actually located. How far out you can rank depends in part on how competitive your market is. If there is virtually no competition in your area than you could rank further into other cities. Super competitive - probably your city only.

Here are some of the most important signals the Local algo is looking for according to experts:
Local Search Ranking Factors Study 2017 - Local SEO | Moz | Moz

 

[Ampere]

I see, I was under the misunderstanding that your website didn't affect the Local (3-pack/Maps) results that much.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Yes your site is one of the biggest ranking factors.

 

[pollini]

Hey

maybe you can help me, I've to register on google maps.

excellent idea to put the beam up to a maximum of 30 kilometers.

I wanted to ask you having to enter a company that does ecology consulting and waste disposal, as well as industrial cleaning, what should I put as a category?

thank you