Google Business Profile for a Home-Based Business: Hiding Your Address the Right Way

Plumbers, cleaners, mobile detailers, photographers, dog walkers, personal trainers: plenty of real businesses don't have a storefront. They run from home and go to the customer.

You can absolutely have a Google Business Profile. But setting it up the wrong way, by showing your home address, is one of the most common reasons profiles get suspended.

What Google calls a service-area business

Google sorts businesses by how customers reach them. When you verify, Google asks you to pick one:

• My business has a physical location for customers, like a restaurant or store.
• My business has a physical location but travels to work at customers' locations, like a plumber or photographer.
• My business travels to meet customers without a staffed physical location, like personal trainers and dog walkers.
• An unstaffed facility, like an ATM or EV charger.
• My business is online only.

If customers don't come to your home, you're a service-area business. That's the third option, or the second if you also have a real office or shop customers can visit.

One warning: if your business is truly online only, with no in-person contact at all, Google doesn't give it a profile.

How to set it up the right way

Hide your address. Google still needs your address to verify you, but if customers don't visit it, it shouldn't show on your profile. Clear the address from the public profile and list a service area instead.

List your service area. Add the cities, ZIP codes or counties you actually serve. Google's guidance is to keep it within about two hours of driving time from where you're based. Listing the whole state doesn't help you show up in more places.

One profile, not one per city. Making a separate profile for each town you serve is a duplicate listing, and it's a fast way to get suspended. One business, one profile.

No P.O. boxes or virtual offices. A mailbox isn't a business location. Use your real address for verification and hide it.

Verifying without a storefront

Verification is where home-based businesses get stuck most. If Google asks for a video, it wants to see:

• Where you are: a street sign or landmark near your address.
• That the business exists: your tools, equipment or products.
• That you run it: you doing the work, opening a branded vehicle, or a permit, invoice or utility bill that matches your profile name.

Our guide to video verification has a shot list for service-area businesses.

Already suspended?

If your profile was suspended because a home address was showing, the fix is the setup above: hide the address, set a service area, remove any duplicates. Then appeal through Google with documents showing your business is real.

Want it set up right the first time? Our done-for-you Google Business Profile setup handles service-area businesses, including verification.