Service Area - Cities/Zips vs. Within X Miles

[KevinWag]

Hi all,

I'm sorry if this one has been beaten to death elsewhere on the forum (or in general), but I'm curious if anyone has tested or seen movement based on how the service area is designated in the GMB dash. I have clients that list 5-10 cities and counties, and have some hesitation to change to within 50 miles.

Or even more references to best practices would be helpful if you don't have anecdotal evidence of one being more beneficial.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Kevin,

Listing multiple cities or zips can be a problem in that Google will place the marker in the middle of those locations. Sometimes that puts the marker in the middle of a lake, golf course, desert or other location that does not look very convenient to potential customers.
(I can show lots of examples if you like.)

Unless something has changed I don't know about, service area settings don't affect ranking at all. If the presence of the business and competition is such that they would only rank in the city they are in, casting a wider net won't help them rank in other areas.

Best practice as far as I know is still simply setting a 30 mile radius from the location. You could set it at 50 but likely they would not rank that far anyway and again service radius just does not have an impact. It's mainly just to show customers the area you serve.

Anyone have any newer info or an opinion about this?

 

[JoyHawkins]

It doesn't impact ranking so really all it does is make the circle on the map larger in your Knowledge Panel.

 

[KevinWag]

Thank you! Always appreciate how on top of local SEO you ladies are!

 

[chadkimball]

It doesn't impact ranking so really all it does is make the circle on the map larger in your Knowledge Panel.

Google should really fix this. The service areas that a business claims to serve should impact their ranking in those areas.

A customer doesnt care how far a SAB traveled to get to them as long as they are on time and provide good service!

In fact, if the BEST sab is 50 miles away, the customer would rather hire them than hire the crappy one in their town. I've done this myself hiring sewer contractors for my house, the one that was 30 miles away was twice as good as the one in my town.

This is one case where the ranking algorithm clearly doesn't favor the customer experience.

 

[KevinWag]

Completely agree Chad.

In this case, when you want someone to inspect your home before purchasing, you don't care if they have to drive 50 miles, you just want the highest quality, well-reviewed inspector.

Proximity is showing far lower quality results in my testing.