Are Home-Based Businesses Eligible for a Google Business Profile?

Yes, home-based businesses are eligible for a Google Business Profile if they serve customers in person at their location or travel to customers, with the option to hide their address if privacy is a concern.

The Google Business Profile Help community is full of threads like the one shown above in which the complexity of Google’s guidelines has left home-based business owners feeling confused about their eligibility. The volunteer Product Experts are kept very busy, not merely citing appropriate guidelines where they exist, but trying to interpret grey areas when official documentation falls short. 

I want to provide a set of general best practices here to the multitude of home-based business owners because I do not think the current guidelines go far enough towards instructing this very large group in regards to GBP eligibility. This is what I, personally, have learned about home-based businesses in Google’s system:

• Your home-based business is typically eligible for a GBP if you either serve the public face-to-face at your location or travel to customers’ locations to do so.
• You must use your home address in listing your business – do not use P.O. boxes or virtual offices. 
• If privacy is a concern, you can list yourself as a service-area business and hide your address. 
• It is definitely possible to run more than one business out of your home. For example, you might have a dog grooming business and a bookkeeping service in the same household. However, problems with verification can arise if you attempt to run two businesses in the same business category (like two plumbing companies) from your same home address. Each business you operate should have its own phone number and website. You do not need to create fictitious suite numbers to try to differentiate the businesses. 
• Don’t create more than one listing for a single home business in an attempt to represent its variety of services. For example, if you run an HVAC company out of your house, do not create one GBP for your heating services and another for your air conditioning services.
• If you want your address publicly displayed on your listing, you’ll need street signage at your home-based business. If you don’t have a sign and don’t want your address displayed, you can still succeed at video verification with Google by offering a variety of other proofs of legitimacy. These include street signs near your house and the address number on the exterior of your house, footage of yourself unlocking and entering your home, evidence such as business cards, print marketing materials, and film of your computer/workspace showing signs of activities related to your business such as taking bookings and accessing your company’s website and social media profiles. 

If you serve the public in person and can build up a strong set of proofs of your business’ legitimacy, you are very likely eligible for a Google Business Profile.

Miriam Ellis is a local SEO columnist and consultant. She has been cited as one of the top five most prolific women writers in the SEO industry. Miriam is also an award-winning fine artist and her work can be seen at MiriamEllis.com.