The Google listing of a business with no shopfront

You still read that Google “requires a commercial premises” and a twenty-kilometre zone, or the listing dies. The current rules are more precise — and more useful. You can have a profile if customers visit you, or if you go to them. What you cannot do is invent an address to look closer, or stick “plumber” in the name when the van says something else.

Screenshot pending: local-seo

Run pnpm screens with the app's local stack up to capture it. A business listing in Artifluence.

Premises, area, or both — but true

The representation guidelines distinguish a location customers visit from a business that travels. A plumber or electrician working from a depot, with no counter, declares a service area. The depot address, if it is not visitable, is not a fake shopfront.

If you have a workshop where people pick up a quote, you have premises. You show them. You do not add “and the whole metro area” to the name to win searches thirty kilometres away.

The area is not a magical 20 km radius carved in stone. It is the area you actually cover. Google crosses it with the searching customer’s distance. Lying about it is the same risk as a fake address: suspension.

The name and the categories

The name: the one on the company register and the van, not “Emergency plumber 24/7 Lyon”. The examples in the guidelines are clear — hours, services and city in the name are refused.

The primary category: the type of business. “Plumber”, not “general contractor” because it sounds broader. Secondaries: only what you do (heating, electrical call-outs if that is true). Google says to choose the fewest categories that describe the core business. Ten categories is often nine lies.

Photographs of a business with no room

No “cosy interior” cover. The van, the job (with the customer’s consent), the before-and-after of a leak, the finished board. The team on the pavement. That is what reassures someone searching at 10pm.

Reviews do the rest of prominence. A business without a shopfront is chosen on other people’s sentences, more than on a window. Reply, ask after the job — without filtering.

What I do not promise

I do not promise Artifluence “unlocks” a suspended listing. I do not promise a radius either. A kept listing, answered reviews, photographs of your jobs: that is the product.

The report tells you what Maps already shows. If the listing does not exist, create it with a true area. If it exists with a convenience address, fix it before Google does.

Sources

1. Guidelines for representing your business on Google (accessed 7 September 2026)
2. Manage your business category (accessed 7 September 2026)
3. Tips to improve your local ranking on Google (accessed 7 September 2026)

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