Service Area Businesses (SABs) In Local SEO

Service Area Businesses (SABs) In Local SEO

Navigating the world of local SEO feels like charting uncharted territory.

In service area businesses, plumbers, electricians, mobile pet groomers, and the like are facing challenges in establishing a strong online presence. However, understanding the nuance of local SEO for service area businesses and implementing the right strategies enables effective targeting of service areas and reaching more customers than ever before.

Understanding service area businesses

A service area business is a company visiting customers at their location to provide a product or service, instead of operating from a visible storefront. Businesses do not serve walk-in clients. Instead, define the geographic areas they cover so that users searching online can see which locations are included.

A plumber, electrician, or cleaning company travelling from home to home is treated as a service area business on platforms like Google’s local search. Because they do not have a fixed location, service area businesses are handled differently in local search systems. They help fill search results with providers offering on-site services, improving access to mobile professionals in the area.

Google Business Profile (GBP) service areas make it possible to specify locations that a business serves by adding up to 20 service areas based on the cities, postal codes, or neighbourhoods served. Service area businesses should only create one profile for the metro area that they serve, and the boundaries of the service area should not extend more than about 2 hours of driving time from where the business is based. Service area in Google Business profile refers to the geographical regions where your business provides service. Unlike a physical business location, which is anchored to a specific address, a service area enables you to define multiple locations or regions where the business operates.

Challenges and Opportunities

All local businesses facing challenge of establishing their localness and E-E-A-T, as found in Google’s Search Quality Raters Guidelines, and without a clearly defined base of operations, which can become a little more difficult. However, this is also presenting opportunities to expand the business’ reach beyond a single location.

Challenges -

SABs can’t rely on traditional local SEO tactics such as optimizing a Google Business profile listing with a physical address pinned to a Google Map, thereby more naturally appearing in searches “near me”, which has become a very common local consumer query. Secondly, SABs often compete with both established businesses with a physical presence and other SABs in a local market. At last, accurately defining and targeting the service area is important for SABs to reach the right customers. But it means that having to prove to Google your business is effectively able to reach customers across a potentially wide service area, that may cross into the ‘territory’ of multiple other service area businesses.

Opportunities –

SABs can naturally target a broader geographic area compared to businesses with a fixed location. They can adjust their service areas based on customer demand and expanding business goals. SABs typically operate with lower overhead costs compared to businesses with physical storefronts.

Key Strategies

As per the 2023 Brightlocal study, the most trusted platforms consumers are using to find information about local businesses are Google (66%), Google Maps (45%), business websites (36%), Facebook (32%), and Yelp (32%).

1. You can and must still optimize your Google Business Profile

For many businesses, a GBP is not more important than their corporate website. A Google study from 2019 points out that “60% smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results”, and this has not doubt that only continue to increase. 

You must create a GBP profile and select the “service-area business” option. Under this option, you will add but hide your address and then selecting upto 20 service areas you are covering based on city or postal code.

Choosing only relevant categories. Select primary and secondary categories from those provided in GBP that most accurately reflect the services you provide. Don’t select a subcategory if you do not provide the service, but would like to be found by people searching for the service. Complete your entire GBP profile, including business name, phone number, website, service areas, hours of operation, etc. you are offering your audience with every possible detail regarding your business and don’t want to exclude anyone by leaving out key information.

GBP reviews are a powerful ranking signal. For service-area businesses needing to “prove” their coverage, it is important to gain reviews from customers across the defined service area. GBP provides all businesses the opportunity to easily post content regarding their services, promotions, and links to external content like blog posts, events, etc., which is quite often underutilized.

2. Build a Solid, Mobile-Friendly Web Presence with local SEO in mind

GBP is a primary landing place for many local searchers, a local business website serving an important role as an online storefront and information resource. Specific considerations for SABs and local SEO include creating location-specific pages, locally optimizing your website pages and content, ensuring mobile friendliness, and building local citations.

3. Local Link Building

Building high-quality, relevant local backlinks significantly improves your website’s authority and local search ranking. This is because partnering with complementary businesses in each of your service areas for link exchange opportunities, sponsoring local events, participating in community forums, and building relationships with local organizations to earn backlinks.

4. Leverage Service-Area Focused Content Marketing and Social Media

Modern SEO include creating valuable and informative content to answer all questions your target audience has about your services, thereby establishing your business as a trusted resource. Some of the recommendation that helps in building authority include the creation of local, topically relevant content, and promoting your content locally.

5. Monitor and Track Your Local SEO Performance

Local SEO performance regular monitoring and tracking is important for understanding which content and channels are working or not in order to identify the areas for improvement and to measure the overall effectiveness of your strategies.

Primary areas where local SAB should focus, analyzing GBP insights, using Google Analytics, monitoring local rankings, and tracking social media reach & engagement.

Targeting Your Local Presence

Local SEO is important for service area businesses looking to reach prospective customers within their target area. Implementing the strategies outlined, SABs can effectively target their coverage areas, attract local customers, and grow their businesses.