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No storefront needed: your Google listing when you work at the customer's home
Knows how to set up their Google Business Profile as a service-area business, without showing their home address, choosing the right areas and towns they cover. By the end, they know what signals make Google hide or reject a listing for looking residential, and leave theirs set up the way Google asks for anyone who works at the customer's home.
You work from home: you do repairs, cleaning, tutoring, or locksmith work, and when it's time to set up your business on Google, the first question stops you cold: what address do I use? If you put down your home address, anyone looking at the map can see it. If you leave it blank, you worry Google won't trust it and could cause problems with your profile at any time.
This course solves that in the order you'll run into it: first the setting that hides your home from the map, then the category that describes how you work, not a storefront you don't have, then which towns to actually list based on your schedule, and how to verify the listing without revealing your address. It wraps up with the photos and description that tell your story without pointing to your house, plus a final check so no stray piece of information online contradicts what your profile is hiding.
It's for people who work from home or out of a van and charge for on-site visits (plumbers, locksmiths, hairstylists, private tutors), not for anyone with a storefront or a shop with a street entrance, since that kind of profile doesn't need to hide anything.
- Mark your profile as a service-area business and hide your home address from the map.
- Choose as your primary category the one that truly describes your trade, not a storefront you don't have.
- Build your list of service towns from your schedule, not from a radius in miles.
- Verify your profile with your real address without it showing up on the map.
Already have your Google Business Profile created, even if it's only half finished.
The 6 lessons
In the order it makes the most sense to read them.
- 1
The checkbox that hides your home from the map
When you're done, your listing shows your service area instead of your home address, just as Google's guidelines require for businesses that work at the customer's location.
4 min - 2
Choose the category that describes how you work, not a storefront you don't have
You'll know how to pick your main category based on how you actually work, with no storefront in sight, and why you shouldn't add categories just to show up in more searches.
4 min - 3
The towns you put on the map, and the ones you leave out
You leave this lesson with the list of towns you actually cover, pulled straight from your own calendar, not drawn in broad strokes on the map.
4 min - 4
The postcard reaches your house; the map doesn't show it
You verify your listing with your real address without it showing on the map, and you know what to do with whatever method Google offers you.
4 min - 5
The photo of your work van says more than the one of your front door
You'll know what photos to upload and what to write in your profile's description without anything pointing to where you live.
4 min - 6
What shows you actually work in the salon, even when your profile says otherwise
A final check of your name, description, the phone number people search for, and your hours, so no stray piece of information online contradicts the listing you've already set up.
4 min