Avoiding Google Business Profile Suspensions: What Every UK Plumbing and Heating Engineer Should Know
Recently, I spoke with a plumbing business owner who wanted help to fix his Google Business Profile after it kept getting hit with numerous suspensions. The repeated suspensions seemed to stem from issues with the address for his Google Business Profile because the company wasn’t following Google’s guidelines for Service Area Businesses (SABs).
Although many in the industry are going through a slow period, he estimated that since the suspensions started the previous summer, his business revenue plummeted by 50% in the last year.
What is a Service Area Business (SAB)?
A Service Area Business (SAB) is a business, such as Plumbing or HVAC, that provides services directly to customers at their homes or businesses rather than the customer coming to them at a physical location such as the local Screwfix, sandwich shop or boozer.
The issue arises when trade businesses incorrectly display their home address rather than their office or showrooms if they have one. Under Google’s current guidelines, SABs should only show the areas they serve rather than a public-facing address.
Avoiding Suspensions
How can you ensure that your Google Business Profile doesn’t get suspended? The key lies in understanding Google’s guidelines, making sure you follow them, and the consequences of a temporary suspension. Here are the most common mistakes to avoid:
1. Incorrectly Displaying Your Home:
If you run your business from home and serve customers at their locations, you should not be listing your home address on your Google Business Profile. Instead, mark yourself as a Service Area Business and only specify the areas you cover.
2. Using Virtual Addresses:
Some businesses list virtual offices or co-working spaces to have a more ‘professional’ presence or to locate their business closer to the town centre. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t allow this for SABs and this is a common reason for profile suspensions.
3. Keyword Stuffing Your Business Name:
Another easy-to-miss mistake is keyword stuffing in your business name. Some businesses try to improve their search rankings by adding unnecessary keywords to their company name, like “Jacks Plumbing, Boiler & Emergency Plumber Manchester 24/7.” Other than looking strange to your customers it is easy for Google to check your listed name across the internet and enforce a change of name or possible suspension for breach of Googles Guidelines.
4. Making Too Many Changes at Once:
Although making “legit” changes to your Google Profile is not against its guidlines it is advised to just make one change at a time. Major changes to your profile such as Business name or Business address can flag your profile for review.
Avoiding the Drop in Rankings
Warning! Changing to a Google “SAB” may have a negative affect your ranking on Google Maps, but this is often a sign of deeper SEO issues. While many people blame the SAB switch for their drop in rankings, it’s likely that other areas of their SEO needs improving.
To help outrank your local competition, you need to make sure you have worked on the following three areas of your local SEO. Content, Authority, and Technical SEO or what I like to call “CAT”.
Content:
Regularly update your Google profile & website with relevant words, images & video content surrounding your most profitable services & the location that you serve. This could include mini blog posts, individual “sales” pages for all your services and “local” customer case studies.
Authority:
Build your business’s online authority by collecting positive reviews, and making sure your business is listed accurately across as many business directories as possible. Attracting backlinks to your website will also improve authority but is far more complex that building reviews & business directories.
Technical SEO:
Ensure that you have completed your Google Business Profile & that your website is hosted by a top hosting company. Paying Dave down the pub with a pint and porkpie is unlikly to get you decent hosting which is built of multi million pound technology. If you want Googles reward of free incoming leads & sales taking the time to learn about optimising your Google profile and paying a few more pounds per month for decent hosting is not much to get in front of the competition.
Take Action
Investing time in improving your overall SEO will lead to better results in the long term. Next month, we’ll take a deeper look into how to improve your Content, Authority, and Technical SEO. For now make sure you’re following Google’s guidelines for SABs by searching Google for “google service area guidelines”
For a more detailed breakdown of how to optimise your Google Business Profile and other geeky videos from Digital Toolbag check out my new YouTube channel
Tom Lee-Zmuda
Hey buddy. My name is Tom, a former heating engineer turned marketing Jedi. My team and I specialise in helping local HVAC and Solar business owners dominate Google and sell their most profitable services. We are committed to building the best ROI through local SEO, kick-ass websites & sales communications that attract, sell and keep your best five-star customers.
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