Google Local Adds Service Areas

If you logged into your Google Local account the last day or two, you may have noticed something new.

Service Areas and Location Settings

You can choose whether or not your listing has a physical address associated with it. According to Google Maps Help:

Service Area Listings With An Address
Listings with a designated service area and a physical address appear the same in Google Maps search results as results without a service area. Once a you click on the listing title, the information window that appears allows you to toggle service areas on and off by clicking ‘Show/hide service area’. By default, service areas are hidden. On the map itself, the listing appears as a red pin. If you’ve chosen ‘Show service area,’ the service area will appear as a see-through red shape.

Service Area Listings Without An Address
Listings with a designated service area and no address appear in Google Maps search results with a red circle and the city the business is located in. Once you click on the listing title, the information window that appears allows you to toggle service areas on and off by clicking ‘Show/hide service area’. On the map, the listing appears as a red floating circle. If you’ve chosen ‘Show service area,’ the service area will appear as a see-through red shape.

Unfortunately, there is no interface for this functionality through the bulk upload system yet. You have to add the Service Area by hand.

Service Areas are something that we’ve been looking for in the Local SEO world for some time. Many businesses do not have customers coming to their location, but rather go to the customer’s location. While these firms certainly have a tight geographic focus, the Google Local system has been failing them until now.

It’s not clear what the limitation is on geographic range, but I expect that the further a location is from the center of your range, the harder it is going to be for you to rank for your target search terms.