Most home service businesses are what Google calls service-area businesses: you go to the customer, the customer does not come to you. Google's profile rules for that model are specific, and getting them wrong is one of the most common causes of a suspension. Getting them right is also one of the few settings that directly affects where your profile can appear.
Here is what each setting does and how to choose.
Show or hide the address
Google's guidelines say to show your address only if customers can visit you there during stated hours. If you work from a home, a yard nobody visits, or a mailbox, the address should be hidden and a service area set instead. A hidden-address profile still has an address on file with Google for verification; it just is not shown publicly.
Businesses that serve customers both ways (a showroom plus in-home service) can show the address and set a service area.
The temptation is to show a home address because it seems to help with "near me" ranking. It does not help enough to justify the risk, and a visible residential address invites both a suspension and a customer knocking on your door.
Set the service area by place, not by radius
Google lets you define the service area by naming cities, postal codes, or larger regions. It caps how many you can add, and it asks that the total area be reasonable for a business to actually serve.
Use real places, and use the ones you actually go to. The trap is listing every town within a hundred miles because it seems like more coverage. It is not. The service area is a statement of where you work; it is not a ranking lever, and an implausibly large one is a suspension flag. Google's own guidance is that a service area should be limited to roughly what a business can reach in a couple of hours of driving.
A service area that matches your real range has a second benefit: the leads that come from it are ones you can actually serve.
What the service area does and does not do
It tells Google and customers where you work. It affects eligibility to appear for searches in those areas. It does not make you rank in a city just because you listed it. Ranking in a city you have no physical presence in still depends on proximity to the searcher, relevance, and prominence, which is why a service-area business in a suburb often ranks well there and poorly in the city center twenty miles away.
The way to build presence in an area you list but do not rank in is content: a service-area page on your site for that city, reviews from customers in that city that mention it, and photos from jobs there.
Primary category and secondary categories
The primary category is the single most important setting on the profile. It should be the thing you most want to be found for and the thing your license and website say you do. "Plumber," not "Contractor." "HVAC contractor," not "Air conditioning repair service," unless that is genuinely your core. Our guide to choosing the primary category walks through it.
Add secondary categories for the other things you actually do, and only those.
Hours
Set real hours. If you take emergency calls outside them, use the "more hours" options to indicate that rather than marking the profile open around the clock. A profile that claims to be open at 3 a.m. and does not answer at 3 a.m. earns the review you do not want.
Services and the services list
Under each category, Google lets you list specific services with descriptions. Fill these in. They help the profile match more specific searches and they set customer expectations before the call. Match the list to what your website says, and match the LSA services list if you run Local Services Ads, so all three agree.
Keep it stable
Once set, leave it alone. Repeated edits to the name, address, categories, or service area in a short period look like a hijacking attempt or an ownership dispute to Google's systems. Change these only when the business changes, and change one thing at a time.
Photos, posts, Q&A, and services are the fields to keep active. Those never cause problems.
A quick audit
Open the profile and check, in order: is the address hidden if customers do not visit; does the service area list only places you serve; is the primary category the thing you most want to be found for; do the hours match reality; does the services list match the website; and does the name field contain only the business name. If all six pass, the profile is set up correctly, and the rest of local ranking is proximity, relevance, and prominence.
Profile setup is part of the local SEO work we do, and the six-point check above is the first thing we run in an audit.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have one profile with a hidden address and another with a visible one?
Only if they are genuinely separate locations with separate staff and hours. Two profiles for one operation is a duplicate-listing violation.
I moved my business. How do I update the address?
Edit the address in the profile once, completely, and be prepared for re-verification. Do not create a new profile.
Does the service area affect Local Services Ads?
LSA has its own service area setting. Set both the same.
How many service areas should I list?
As many as you genuinely serve and no more. If your real range is six towns, list six.