For most tradies, Google Business Profile brings in more calls than the website does. It’s the thing that shows up in the map results when someone searches “electrician near me” or “blocked drain Lismore”, and a lot of people ring straight from it without ever visiting your site.
If you go to the customer, the setup is: tell Google you’re a service-area business, hide your home address, list up to 20 towns you really work in, pick the most specific primary category, then keep photos and reviews coming in steadily.
It’s also where we see the most avoidable mess. Home addresses showing on the map, service areas stretching to Brisbane, a primary category of “Contractor”, and the same three photos uploaded in 2019. All of it is fixable in an afternoon.
Step 1: tell Google you’re a service-area business
Google splits businesses into three types. A shopfront serves customers at its address. A service-area business goes to customers and doesn’t serve them at its address. A hybrid does both.
Most tradies are service-area businesses. If customers don’t come to your house or yard, that’s you. Google’s setup guide says that when you create a profile and it asks whether you have a location customers can visit, a business without a staffed storefront should answer No.
A hybrid needs a genuine customer-facing location. Google’s help pages say a hybrid needs permanent signage to count as a shopfront. A shed in the backyard with a sign on the roller door doesn’t make you a showroom.
Step 2: hide your address
If your profile is already set up and showing your home address, fix it now. Google’s guidance is that a business without a storefront where it receives customers must hide its address.
At the time of writing (late 2026), the steps are:
- Go to your profile (search your business name on Google while signed in, or go to business.google.com).
- Select Edit profile, then Location.
- Click the edit icon next to Business location.
- Turn off Show business address to customers.
- Save.
You still need a real address to verify the business, and Google uses it to understand where you’re based. It just doesn’t show it publicly. Once hidden, your profile shows the service area instead.
Google moves these menus around, so if the labels don’t match exactly, look for the same options under Location or Contact.
Step 3: set service areas you cover
Google’s service area help page sets the limits:
- Up to 20 service areas.
- The overall boundary should generally be no more than about two hours’ drive from your base.
- Areas are defined by town, postcode or region. Radius-based areas are no longer allowed.
The temptation is to add every town you’d ever drive to. Don’t. Service areas are about what you show customers, and adding Brisbane and Sydney won’t make you rank there. It just makes you look like you don’t know where you work.
For a tradie based in Ballina, a sensible list might be: Ballina, Lennox Head, East Ballina, West Ballina, Skennars Head, Alstonville, Wollongbar, Wardell, Cumbalum, Lismore, Byron Bay, Bangalow. Twelve real towns beats twenty aspirational ones. Lismore-based trades would centre that list on Lismore, Goonellabah, Casino, Nimbin, Kyogle and so on.
Make sure the same towns appear on your website. When the profile and the site agree on where you work, it’s more convincing for Google and for customers.
Step 4: get the categories right
Your primary category is one of the strongest signals for which searches you show up in. Pick the one that matches the work you most want: “Electrician”, “Plumber”, “Builder”, “Roofing contractor”, “Concrete contractor” and so on. Google offers a long list, so search for the most specific match.
Then add secondary categories for other genuine services. A plumber might add “Gasfitter”, “Drainage service” and “Water heater installation service” if those exist and apply. An electrician might add “Solar energy contractor” or “Air conditioning contractor” if they do that work.
Avoid generic categories like “Contractor” as your primary unless nothing else fits. And don’t add categories for things you don’t do. You’ll get calls you have to turn away and, eventually, reviews that say so.
Step 5: fill in everything else
The parts people skip:
- Business name. Use your real business name. Adding “Best Electrician Ballina” to it breaks Google’s guidelines and can get the profile suspended.
- Phone number. A mobile is fine. Make sure it’s the one that gets answered.
- Website. Link to your home page, or a specific location page if that fits better.
- Hours. Set real hours. If you take emergency calls, you can say so in the description rather than claiming you’re open 24 hours when you’re not.
- Services. Add each service with a sentence of description. This is a free place to describe what you do in customers’ words.
- Description. Who you are, what you do, which towns, how long you’ve been doing it. Add your licence number here too. The rules on that are covered in showing your licence number on your website in NSW.
Step 6: photos that help
Customers look at photos to decide whether you’re real. Google looks at them to understand what you do. Add:
- A clear photo of your van or ute with signage.
- You and your team, in uniform, looking like people someone would let into their house.
- Finished jobs, with a few before-and-after pairs.
- Work in progress, especially for trades where the quality is hidden (switchboards, drainage, framing).
Take them on your phone, in daylight, with the lens wiped. Upload a few every month rather than 40 once. Fresh photos signal an active business, and they give you something to post in updates.
Skip stock photos entirely. Anyone who has looked at a few tradie profiles can spot them.
Step 7: reviews, steadily
Reviews are the biggest thing customers look at, and probably the biggest factor in where you appear on the map that you can influence. The trick is a steady flow, not a burst. Ten reviews in a week then nothing for a year looks odd to customers and to Google.
Ask every happy customer, at the right moment, with a direct link. We’ve written a full guide on getting Google reviews as a tradie, including a text message script and what to say when someone leaves a bad one.
Monthly ten minutes
Once it’s set up, put a recurring reminder in your phone:
- Reply to any new reviews.
- Add three to five new photos from recent jobs.
- Check your hours, especially around Christmas and public holidays.
- Look at the Performance section to see how many calls came from the profile.
- Check nobody has suggested an edit to your details. Anyone can, and Google sometimes accepts them.
Common questions
Can I have more than one profile for different towns?
Not unless you have a genuine, staffed location in each. Google’s setup guide warns against multiple profiles for the same business in one area and says it may suspend accounts that do it. One profile with good service areas is the right approach.
Why don’t I show up in a town I’ve listed as a service area?
Service areas tell customers where you go, but distance from your base still matters a lot in map rankings. To show up in towns further away, you need reviews, a website with useful pages about those towns, and time.
If you’d rather hand the setup and monthly upkeep to someone else, our local SEO work covers Google Business Profile setup (from $450 + GST at the time of writing) and ongoing management, and it pairs well with one of our websites for tradies. Profile setup is also built into the tradie.agency packages.