How to enter towns in Service Areas

[Ampere]

It allows you to enter towns in many different ways. And it will list all of them, allowing you to repeat the town.

For example, it will allow me to enter all 3 of these:

1) Moonachie, Bergen Country, New Jersey
2) Moonachie, NJ, USA
3) Moonachie, NJ 07074, USA

And then there is the 4th way which most of mine area;

4) Moonachie, New Jersey 07074

But that last way I can't get to do it today.

I serve 15 towns. Should I put all 3 for each town? Or is there a better one to pick?

Also, since I cant set any towns to that 4th way today, I wonder if I should change them all to the new way (1 thru 3)? Could that be the reason for my recent drop in calls? :-(

 

[BenFisher]

I would stick to Moonachie, NJ, USA, you can also add individual zips.

 

[Ampere]

I would stick to Moonachie, NJ, USA, you can also add individual zips.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

What do you mean by adding individual zips? What it shows in options 3)?

 

[BenFisher]

An example is 85392, Avondale, AZ (This happens when you just type in the zip)

 

[Ampere]

An example is 85392, Avondale, AZ (This happens when you just type in the zip)

It is not giving me that option.

If I type in the zip code it only gives the option to do #3 above (Moonachie, NJ 07074, USA).

Also, my main question is whether I should only do it 1 way, or multiple ways for each town? So if I find a way to do it like you mentioned with the zip code first, should I do it that way AND the normal way with the town first? Or only once?

 

[BenFisher]

I would do it one way, be consistent, only cover an area once.

 

[mattheffner]

I would agree I don't see any benefit to adding it more than one time as long as it's covered. I've used city names instead of zips as people search with names and not zips but realistically I doubt it makes that much of a difference.

 

[JohnS]

I serve 15 towns. Should I put all 3 for each town? Or is there a better one to pick?

@Ampere - Where are you planning to use this? Are you thinking of stuffing all 15 services areas in one page? I would not recommend that.

Adding postal code doesn't hurt but from an local SEO point of view I have always found City, State works when used correctly.

 

[Martin Briggs]

Just to be clear, since John asked, you're talking about adding locations to the service area within GMB?

If you enter all the variations you listed for Moonachie into Google Maps, the boundaries are identical for the first 2 and very similar for the 3rd. I'd go with what Matt said, I don't think it's going to make much difference - don't go putting 3 versions for each town.

 

[JohnS]

@Martin Briggs Good point.. I have had my head in websites ands product schemas all day. At the same time the GMB service areas are pretty straight forward what you can enter...

Enter your service area information. You can set your service area based on the cities, postal codes, or other areas that you serve.
Note: You can no longer set your service area as a distance around your business.

My experience anyway. Although I am always learning new things and Google is always tweaking stuff.

 

[Ampere]

Thanks guys. I did as you said and it looks good now