Local service question

[James]

Ive done quite well ranking businesses in the map pack but I have something I am considering trying and wanted to get some insight before hand.

All the businesses I have ranked have been what I would call proper businesses where the customer goes to the place of business so think of a tattoo studio or a dentist that kind of thing.

There is a service I could offer myself, it isnt but lets say its loft conversion where the customer would not come to me, they would call and I would go visit them, a service business where I would visit people within a certain area. I have been thinking about setting this up for some time but not started on it yet. The thing I am wondering is:

1) I dont really want my home address listed as the location of business so I know I can do service area stuff in google my business and not show my address, however,
2) As the ranking might rely on citations I would need to create citations which would list my home address and that is something I would rather avoid.

I would guess I need the citations to rank so there is no way around the above?

Does google use citiations in ranking businesses that service an area and if this is the case would it work to get a nearby virtual address so I dont have to have the place I live in listed as a business. I dont really want people turning up at the door as I live in a shared house.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Does google use citiations in ranking businesses that service an area and if this is the case would it work to get a nearby virtual address so I dont have to have the place I live in listed as a business. I dont really want people turning up at the door as I live in a shared house.

Hi James, yes Google uses citations for SAB's in the same way it does for businesses with a storefront.

When you tell Google or a business directory to "hide" your address it still knows what your address is on the back-end.

A virtual address isn't going to help since they aren't allowed to be used for a Google My Business listing. So it's going to end up causing more harm than good.

If your home address is your official business address than that is the address that Google wants you to enter into GMB to verify your listing.

 

[Cherie Dickey]

Ditto Colan. You will need to do some citation work for your SAB in order for your GMB listing to rank. The choices are more limited, but there are directories that allow you to hide your address. Here's an article from Whitespark that should help point you in the right direction: https://whitespark.ca/hidden-address-sites/

 

[JoshuaMackens]

We have customers ask us about this a lot with out business listing service. The truth is you can put yourself on sites that allow you to hide your address but honestly:

1) No customer is probably every going to come to your house, no matter how pissed they are
2) Even if you do get a customer that wants to come to your house, if you hide your address on all the sites you can and leave it up on the sites you can't, the average user wouldn't know how to find your address on those sites you didn't hide your address on.

I would go ahead and put yourself on as many directories as possible. Hide your address where possible. For the rest, I wouldn't worry about hiding your address.