How to change your service area on Google Business Profile

Why the service area on your profile goes out of date

Most owners enter their service area once, on the day they set up the profile. Then the business changes. A crew moves, a town gets too far to be worth the drive, or a new town becomes your best source of work.

Google does not update the list for you. The towns on your profile stay as you typed them until you edit them, so a homeowner in a town you dropped can still see you listed there.

How to change your service area on Google business, step by step

Google's help page on service areas gives these steps. Do them from the phone or computer where you are signed in to the account that manages the profile.

1. 1Sign in to Google and search for your business name to open your Business Profile.
2. 2Choose Edit profile.
3. 3Choose Location.
4. 4Click Edit next to Service area.
5. 5Pick a suggested area or type in your own.
6. 6Click Save.

To drop a town, follow the same path, delete the places you no longer serve, and then save.

What Google lets you enter

Google sets a few limits on the list, and they explain why some entries get refused.

• You can have up to 20 service areas, each one a city, a postal code or another type of area.
• You cannot set your service area as a radius around your business.
• Google advises keeping your areas within about 2 hours of driving time from your business.

That 2 hour figure is advice on Google's page, not a rule it enforces. It still tells you where the line is. A town three hours out does not belong on the list.

How to decide which towns to keep

The list is a promise to homeowners about where you will show up. Use your own job history to decide, since you know it better than any tool does.

1. 1Pull up your last year of invoices and write down the town on each one.
2. 2Keep every town where you did work and would take the next call.
3. 3Delete any town where you turned down jobs or where the drive costs more than the job pays.
4. 4Add the towns next to your best ones that you want more work from, up to the limit of 20.
5. 5Save the list and check the profile on your phone after the update appears.

A line to tell your crew and office what changed

Once the list is saved, tell whoever answers the phone. A caller from a town you just dropped will still ring if an old listing, ad or directory page shows it. This script keeps the answer the same every time.

What to check after you save

Google says approved edits can take up to 48 hours to show, so a profile that looks unchanged an hour later is not broken.

• Look at the profile again after two days on your phone.
• Search your main service plus one town you just added and see whether you appear.
• Search the same service plus one town you removed and see how the listing reads.

What this will not fix

• ×It will not promise you a spot in the map results for each town you add, because Google ranks local results on its own factors.
• ×It will not change other places that list your towns, such as your website, Facebook page or directory listings.
• ×It will not fix a suspended or unverified profile, which needs to be dealt with first.
• ×It will not cover more than 20 areas, so a very large territory needs the bigger areas chosen well.

Common questions

Root's free check looks at this on your own business.