Setting up a remote business with their Google Business Account

[Zx3]

Hi all,

I have a client who operates a remote business and I need to get her Google business/ brand account set up. She doesn't want it listed under her home address (for obvious reasons) but that is where her business is based out of. Apart from getting a PO box and listing her business under that for Google, does anybody know of any other options or best practices?

Thanks!

[Roman-Delcarmen]

I had a problem like that in the past, I needed to verify a location but I was in another city, so I request an alternative verification I filled up a form, 2 or 3 days later someone from Google called me to notify me that my request has been approved.

In that case, it was a hostel with several public profiles such as Booking.com and Tripadvisor so they easily were able to verify the information and location

[MiriamEllis]

Hey There!

Thanks for asking this question. Before I reply, can you define what you mean by a "remote" business. Is your client meetings customers face-to-face at your house or theirs, or is her business totally virtual (no face-to-face interactions)?

[Zx3]

No customers go to her house. Her business is truly remote and if she needs to meet with clients she goes onsite to their location.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Zx3,

So, if she meets clients at their locations instead of her own, that would be a service area business (SAB) which you will find described in the section of Google's Guidelines called "Address" (see:https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en-GB).

It's actually Google's requirement that SABs hide their address. When creating the listing be sure to select the option reading "I deliver goods and services to my customers at their locations." Do not select "I serve customers at my business address". This should lead to the outcome of your client having a GMB listing that shows her city name, but not her street address.

However, there are a couple of provisos you should always share with home-based businesses with privacy concerns.

1. You can't guarantee that Google will keep the address hidden forever. There have been bugs that have caused SAB addresses to go public temporarily. Also, Google could change its policy at any time and decide to show SAB addresses instead of hiding them.

2. When it's imperative to keep an address hidden, citation building is somewhat limited. Some directories won't accept a hidden-address listing, though others will. Please read this post by Phil Rozek for a list of directories that allow addresses to be hidden on listings: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/22/private-local-citations-where-can-you-list-your-business-but-hide-your-address/ It's a bit old now, so I would double check that each entity on there is still supporting hidden addresses, but at least that's a start. The reason it's important to let your client know about the limitations of hidden addresses is that she may not be able to be quite as competitive as some of her competitors who have visible addresses.

Hope this helps!

[Zx3]

Wow! Thank you so much for your response. You've helped me quite a bit and I appreciate it!

[MiriamEllis]

It's my pleasure! Good luck with your client.