Horse Transport company serves entire USA and Canada

[iwebresults]

The Horse Transport company I work with, that serves the entire USA and Canada (has a physical address in Florida that clients do occasionally visit if their horse is stabled there) was able to select USA and Canada as service areas when the Profile was setup (Profile now has 50 reviews). Business Profile support just informed me, in a support call for another issue, that they must remove USA and Canada as service areas and can only choose 20 service areas and these must be city, state in USA. They also required that a separate Profile be made for Canada, which will now need to be populated with new reviews. Strangely the Canada locations can be provinces, so I was able to choose the entire county by selecting the Provinces.

Does this mean that previously when they had erroneously chosen USA and Canada as service areas that the Profile was not being served in google search for Maps across USA and Canada?, and now it will be served in the selected Locations? (once these changes are made). I am afraid the business owners will be very upset to learn that google will now not allow them to have USA and Canada as service areas, now that the Profile has come to Google's attention. And I hope that that these new changes will serve to help the business, not hinder it. Any advice is welcome!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Does this mean that previously when they had erroneously chosen USA and Canada as service areas that the Profile was not being served in google search for Maps across USA and Canada?, and now it will be served in the selected Locations?

No, because the service area has zero impact on where you rank. Ranking is based on the physical address that you use to verify the listing.

Support was right to adjust the service area though. According to the guidelines the service area should not stretch more than 2 hours from the address that you use to verify the listing.

 

[iwebresults]

What is the purpose of the service area? This business serves the entire USA and Canada and has a physical location too, its a hybrid and does not fit exactly into Googles types. Any ideas to help us decide on the 20 service areas if it does not matter for ranking?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

The purpose of the service area is to indicate to potential customers what your service area is. It's a visual thing, not a ranking factor.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Your business model is a tricky one and doesn't fit wonderfully with the Google business profile model, which is designed for businesses with a local market.

 

[iwebresults]

Thank you for your help! The companies with addresses don't seem to show the Service Areas in the Listing, so would I need to try and add 20 locations or would there be a way to say we serve the USA and Canada?

 

[Colan Nielsen]

I would probably focus on Google ads and organic SEO to attempt to rank across US and Canada. The Google business profile is only really going to be useful if someone performs a branded search or they are located near the actual physical location of the business.

 

[Conor Treacy]

While not related to the service area (or ranking), the first line in your business description area should be "we transport horses throughout the entire USA and Canada" or something similar. Beyond that, as Colan said, it's down to the SEO end of things. We faced a similar situation with a national trucking company