Should You Show Your Home Address on Google?

Most tradespeople run the business from home. So when Google asks for a business address, the obvious worry is whether your house is about to appear on Google Maps. It does not have to. Here is how it works.

Two types of business on Google

• Businesses customers visit: shops, showrooms, trade counters. These show their address and get a pin on the map.
• Service-area businesses: businesses that travel to the customer. Most trades are in this group. These hide their address and list the areas they cover instead.

You can also be both, for example a kitchen fitter with a showroom.

If customers do not come to you, hide your address

This is not just a privacy choice. Google's guidelines say that if you do not serve customers at your business address, you should not show it. Displaying a home address that nobody visits is one of the things that can get a profile suspended.

You still give Google your real address when you set up the profile. It is used to verify the business and to work out roughly where you are based. It is just not shown to the public.

How to set it up

When you create or edit your profile, you will be asked whether customers can visit your location. Say no, or clear the address from public view, then add your service areas. You can add towns, cities, postcodes or wider regions.

Choosing your service areas

• You can add up to 20.
• Keep it realistic. Google's guidance is that the overall area should be within about two hours' drive of where you are based.
• Use towns and postcode districts you genuinely cover, not the whole country.
• Bigger is not better. Listing an area does not mean you will rank there.

Does hiding the address hurt your ranking?

This is the bit people worry about. Google still knows where you are based, and distance from the searcher still counts. So a service-area business tends to show up most strongly around its real location, the same as any other.

What listing a service area does not do is make you rank as if you were based in that town. To be found further afield you need more than a setting:

• Area pages on your website for the main towns you cover
• Reviews from customers in those towns
• A profile and website that clearly describe the work you do

Things not to do

• Do not use a virtual office or a mailbox address to appear in a town you are not in. It is against the rules and a common cause of suspensions.
• Do not create a second profile for another town unless you genuinely have a staffed base there.
• Do not use a friend's address in a better location.

The short version

Work from home and travel to customers? Hide the address, list the areas you really cover, and use your website and reviews to reach the surrounding towns. That is the setup we use for most FOUND customers, and it is part of the local SEO work included in the subscription.