Ask the SEO Wizard
Great and Glorious Keeper of the Map Pack,
Will hiding my address help me rank in more towns?
— an owner of a handyman business in Tigard, adapted from a question on r/localseo
Asked
All my work is at customers' homes, and my address is just where the mail goes. Several competitors hide their addresses and seem to show up in more areas than I do. Should I do the same?
The Wizard answers
You should hide it, but not for the reason you think.
If customers don’t come to you, Google’s rules say you’re a service-area business and your address should be hidden. So yes, do it. But hiding it doesn’t make you rank in more towns. Google still knows where you’re verified, and it still ranks map results by distance from the searcher.
The service area list doesn’t do much either. You can list twenty towns. You’ll mostly show up near home.
So why do those competitors show up all over the place? A few possibilities:
- They have a lot more reviews, and strong profiles reach further.
- They have pages on their website for each town they serve.
- Some of them have more than one listing, real or fake. (Fake ones can be reported.)
What actually helps you reach more towns:
- Real town pages on your website. One page per town you really work in, with jobs you’ve done there and photos. Not the same page with the town name swapped.
- Reviews that mention where. “Fixed our deck in Tigard” helps you in Tigard.
- Steady reviews in general. It’s the closest thing to a radius booster that exists.