A mobile dog groomer in Norwich works out of a van and covers the villages around it. She searches "dog groomer norwich" and sees a map pack of three salons with shopfronts. The van isn't the problem. Google has a specific setup for businesses that go to customers, and her profile is set up as if she were a shop. Get the setup right, then build presence in the places you can't physically be.
The profile Google asks a service-area business to have
Google's guidelines for representing your business define a service-area business as one that serves customers at their locations, and they spell out the setup: one profile for the central office or base, with a designated service area, and the business address hidden from customers. Showing an address you don't serve customers at is a breach, so hiding it is the correct setting.
Two variations cover most cases. A hybrid business, where the guidelines' example is a garage that also does roadside repair, serves customers at its premises and at theirs; it can show the address and set a service area. And a service business with genuinely separate locations, each with its own staff and its own area, is allowed one profile per location. What you can't do is create extra profiles for towns where you have no base, or use a mailbox or an unstaffed virtual office as an address. The suspension lesson covers what happens when people try.
The service area is set by place, not by drawing a circle. Google's Business Profile help on managing service areas lets you add up to 20 areas by city, postcode or region, and the guidelines say the overall area shouldn't extend much beyond about two hours of driving time from where you're based. Pick the places you actually work; a long list of towns you'd take a job in once is the same fit-and-evidence question as the keyword grid, applied to the profile.
Distance still counts, even with the address hidden
Google describes local ranking as relevance, distance and prominence, and hiding your address doesn't remove the distance input. Google doesn't document how it measures distance for a hidden address, so treat this as the pattern experienced local SEOs see rather than a published rule: a service-area business tends to rank strongest near its base and fade outward across its declared area.
That's why a single rank check misleads a service-area business. You search from home, see yourself in the pack, and assume the whole area is covered. The groomer's customer in a village on the far edge sees a different pack. A grid check, which runs the same search from many points across the area, shows the real shape: strong at home, weak at the edges, sometimes missing in a town where you work every week.
Your website has to do what a shopfront would
A shop has a building Google can see and customers who walk in. A service-area business has a website, which has to carry more weight.
Start with the homepage. Its first screen says what you do and where you're based, and names the area you cover in a sentence: "Mobile dog grooming across Norwich, Wymondham and the villages in between". The next lesson covers the rest.
Then location pages, and only where the previous lesson's tests pass. For a service-area business these stand in for a premises in each town: jobs you've done there, photos, reviews from customers who live there. The grid tells you which towns need one first: the ones where you work regularly and rank badly.
Your name and phone number on the site must match the profile exactly; with the address hidden on the profile, the name and number are what Google has left to match. Your contact page can say "we come to you" and list the service area instead of a street. If you'd rather not publish a home address anywhere, the LocalBusiness schema lesson covers what to mark up and what to leave out.
Proof that you've been there
A service-area business's prominence comes from evidence of work in the places it claims. Three kinds count.
Reviews that mention the place. Google doesn't document whether the words inside reviews affect ranking, so don't treat this as a keyword tactic. What a review from a customer in Wymondham certainly does is give you a quote for the Wymondham page and show the next searcher there that you've done the job. The reviews chapter gives you the routine for asking.
Photos with a place. The van outside a job, the before-and-after, the team at work. On the profile, and on the location page for that town.
Local mentions. The village newsletter, the local pet shop's website, the sports club you sponsor. For a business with no building, a link from an organisation in that town is the nearest thing to a sign above a door, and local link building covers how to earn them.
What to take away
- Google's guidelines give a service-area business one profile at its base with a hidden address and a declared service area, which Google's Business Profile help caps at 20 places within about two hours' drive.
- Hiding the address doesn't remove distance from ranking; you still rank strongest near your base, and a grid check shows the real shape of your visibility.
- Your website replaces the shopfront: a homepage that says what and where, and honest location pages for the towns where you work often and rank badly.
- Prominence across the area comes from proof of work there: reviews naming the place, photos with a place, and mentions from local organisations.
Next
Your homepage carries your biggest local search, whether you have a shopfront or a van. Your homepage for local search covers what it must say in its first screen.