Setting up a Google Business Profile when you work from home
How a home-based Alberta business can set up a Google Business Profile as a service-area business: hiding your address, choosing areas and verifying.
Many good small businesses in Alberta run from a home office or a truck: plumbers, bookkeepers, cleaners, consultants, photographers. You can still have a full Google Business Profile. You set it up a little differently.
Storefront or service-area business
Google splits local businesses into two kinds:
- Storefronts, where customers come to you: a clinic, a shop, an office with a reception desk.
- Service-area businesses, where you go to customers or work with them remotely.
If customers don’t visit your home, you are a service-area business. That means you hide your address and list the areas you serve instead. Your address is still used to verify you, but it isn’t shown publicly.
Choosing your service areas
List the cities, towns or regions you actually serve, such as Edmonton, St. Albert, Sherwood Park and Spruce Grove. Google allows up to 20 areas and asks that they stay within about two hours’ drive of where you are based. More areas don’t mean more visibility; accurate ones help Google show you to the right people.
Things to avoid
- Virtual offices and mailboxes. A coworking membership or a UPS box doesn’t count as a business location, and can get a profile suspended.
- Keywords in your business name. Use your real business name, exactly as it appears on your signage, invoices and website.
- Showing your home address by accident. Check the setting after verification. It’s easy to miss.
Verification
Google will ask you to verify that the business is real. For many new profiles, that now means a short video showing your business: your branded vehicle, your tools or equipment, and something that ties it to your area. Have those ready before you start, and plan for it to take a few days.
After it’s live
Fill in every section: categories, services, hours, a plain description, and real photos of your work. Then make sure your website and your directory listings describe your business the same way. Consistency is what lets Google, and the AI tools that draw on it, recommend you with confidence.