How to Rank in a Town You're Not Based In

The Multi-Town Problem Every Tradesperson Faces

You are based in one town. You work in six. Google only lets you list one address on your profile. So how do you get found by people in the other five?

This is one of the most common frustrations we hear from tradespeople in North Wales. A landscaper based in Rhyl does half their work in Prestatyn, Colwyn Bay, and Llandudno, but their Google Business Profile only shows them ranking well in Rhyl. The customers in those other towns are searching, finding competitors, and booking someone else.

It does not have to be this way. You cannot fake your way into multiple towns, and you should not try. But there are proven methods to build genuine visibility in places where you are not physically based. Here is exactly how it works.

Why Google Limits You to One Address

Google Business Profile is designed around the idea that a business operates from a location. For shops and restaurants, this makes sense. customers go to you. For tradespeople, it is backwards. You go to the customer. But Google still uses your listed address as an anchor point for proximity calculations.

This means your address gives you a natural advantage in your home town and an automatic disadvantage everywhere else. The further a searcher is from your address, the harder you have to work on the other ranking factors to compete.

But "harder" does not mean impossible. Google explicitly accounts for service area businesses. It knows that a plumber based in Bangor might serve the whole of Gwynedd. The algorithm gives service area businesses more geographic flexibility than storefront businesses. Your job is to send enough signals that Google believes you genuinely serve those wider areas.

Step One: Get Your Service Area Settings Right

Your service area settings are the starting point. Without these, Google has no reason to show you in searches outside your immediate location.

Go to your Google Business Profile and find the service area section. You can list specific towns, cities, or regions. For a tradesperson in North Wales, a typical setup might include your base town plus every other town where you regularly do work.

There are a few rules worth following. Only list places you genuinely serve. If a customer in Carmarthen calls and you tell them you do not travel that far, Google will learn this over time through signals like low engagement and no reviews from that area. Be honest about your range.

Also, do not go overboard. Listing 30 towns dilutes the signal. Google tends to respond better when your service area is focused. If you are a bathroom fitter working across Conwy and Denbighshire, list the six to ten main towns where you work rather than every hamlet in the county.

For a detailed breakdown of how these settings interact with proximity signals, read our guide on service area configuration.

Step Two: Build Reviews From Multiple Towns

This is probably the single most effective strategy for ranking in a town where you are not based. When a customer leaves a review on Google mentioning a specific location, "Brilliant rewire at our house in Llandudno", that sends a direct geographic signal to the algorithm.

Google sees the word "Llandudno" in the review. It associates your business with that location. Over time, as reviews from multiple towns accumulate, Google's confidence that you serve those areas increases.

You do not need to ask customers to stuff keywords into their reviews. Just make it easy. When you send a review link, you could say something like: "If you have a minute, it would be great if you could mention the work we did on your property." Most people will naturally include their town.

We have written a full guide on getting reviews that include location keywords. It covers the exact approach without crossing any lines with Google's review policies.

A heating engineer we work with in Wrexham picked up reviews mentioning Chester and Chirk over a six-month period. Their visibility in those areas improved noticeably within about two months of accumulating location-specific reviews.

Step Three: Post About Jobs in Target Towns

Google Posts are short updates that appear on your Business Profile. Most tradespeople either ignore them completely or post generic promotions that nobody reads. Used properly, they are one of the best tools for building visibility in specific locations.

Every time you finish a job in a town you want to rank in, create a quick post. Something like: "Just completed a full kitchen installation in Colwyn Bay. New units, worktops and plumbing. all done in five days." Include a photo of the finished work.

This does two things. It adds location-relevant content to your profile, reinforcing to Google that you operate in that area. And it gives potential customers in Colwyn Bay evidence that you have actually done work there, which builds trust.

You do not need to post every day. One or two posts per week is enough. The key is consistency and geographic variety. Rotate through the towns you serve so Google sees ongoing activity across your full service area. Our guide on Google Posts that get seen covers what works and what does not.

Step Four: Create Location Pages on Your Website

Your website plays a bigger role in your Google Business Profile ranking than most people realise. Google crawls the website linked to your profile and uses the content to understand what you do and where you do it.

If your website only mentions your base town, Google has limited evidence that you serve anywhere else. Creating dedicated location pages fixes this.

A location page should cover the specific services you offer in that area, reference local landmarks or characteristics that make the content genuine, and include your contact details. It does not need to be thousands of words. A well-written 400-word page for "Plumber in Llandudno" that describes the work you do there, mentions a few completed projects, and includes a clear call to action is worth more than a thin 100-word page stuffed with keywords.

The mistake to avoid is creating twenty nearly identical pages where you have just swapped out the town name. Google has been penalising this kind of templated content for years. Each page needs to be genuinely different. Mention different types of work you have done in each area, reference local factors (hard water issues in certain towns, older housing stock in others), and make each page useful in its own right.

Your website has a direct impact on your GBP ranking, so this investment in content pays double. it helps your organic search rankings and your local pack visibility simultaneously.

Step Five: Build Citations That Reference Your Service Areas

Business citations are mentions of your business on other websites, typically directories. When these citations include your service area information, they reinforce your geographic relevance.

Many directory sites let you list the areas you serve alongside your main address. Yell, Checkatrade, Bark and others all have service area fields. Fill these in consistently across every directory where you are listed.

Beyond the major directories, look for local opportunities. Community websites and North Wales-specific platforms all count. A listing on a Chester business directory that mentions you serve the Chester area sends a valuable signal about your geographic reach.

What NOT to Do

We need to be clear about tactics that will get you in trouble.

Do not create fake listings. Setting up a second Google Business Profile at a mate's address in another town is a violation of Google's terms. It might work for a few months, but Google is increasingly aggressive about detecting and removing fake listings. When they catch it, and they often do, you risk having your real profile suspended too. Our guide on GBP suspensions covers what happens when things go wrong.

Do not rent virtual office addresses. This used to be a common workaround. Rent a virtual office or co-working desk in a target town and create a listing there. Google has cracked down hard on this. They use a combination of pattern detection (multiple businesses at known virtual office addresses) and user reports to identify these listings.

Do not keyword-stuff your business name. Adding "Serving Wrexham and North Wales" to your business name violates Google's guidelines and can trigger a suspension. Your business name should be your actual business name, nothing more.

These shortcuts are tempting because the multi-town ranking problem is genuinely frustrating. But the penalties far outweigh the short-term gains.

Realistic Expectations

Honest talk: ranking in a town where you are not based is harder than ranking in your home town. You are working against proximity, and you need to compensate with stronger signals elsewhere.

For most tradespeople, it takes three to six months of consistent effort, collecting location-specific reviews, posting about work in target areas, building out website content, before you see meaningful movement in a new town.

The competition in the target town matters too. If you are trying to rank in a small town like Prestatyn where there are only a handful of competitors, you can make progress relatively quickly. If you are targeting Chester or Wrexham where there are dozens of businesses fighting for the same searches, it will take longer and require more sustained effort.

The tradespeople who succeed at this treat it as a long-term project rather than a quick fix. They consistently collect reviews, regularly post about their work in different areas and keep their profile fully optimised.

If you are not sure where you currently stand or where your biggest opportunities are, request a free audit and we will show you which towns are within reach and what it will take to rank there.