One Google profile for the whole metro or a page for each town, and when each wins for an electrician
Two ways an electrician can show up in the next town over, a wider Google service area or town pages on the website, with when each wins and what each costs.
You get plenty of calls from your own town and almost none from the bigger suburb fifteen minutes away, even though you would gladly drive there. You set your Google service area to cover the whole county, and nothing changed. Most electricians hit this wall in their second or third year.
There are two common ways to fix it. You can lean on your Google Business Profile and its service area. Or you can build a page on your website for each town you want. They solve different parts of the problem, and picking the wrong one first wastes months.
Why the next town is hard
Google ranks local results mostly on three things: how relevant you are to the search, how far you are from the person searching, and how well known your business is. You can improve the first and third. You cannot move your address.
That is why setting a service area of 40 miles rarely does much on its own. The service area tells Google where you are willing to go. It does not make you closer. A shop with its address in the next town usually wins the map there.
Option 1: the Google profile, worked harder
This means keeping one profile and making it the strongest in your area.
What it involves. Your service area set to the towns you really cover. A full services list with "panel upgrades," "EV charger installation," "generator hookup" and the rest. Photos from jobs in each town. Reviews that mention the town, which happen naturally when you ask customers to say what you did and where.
What it costs. Mostly your time, or a few hundred dollars a month if someone manages it. The Google Business Profile guide covers each setting.
When it wins. When the towns you want are close, within about 10 to 15 minutes of your address. When you are still building reviews. Across the 65,890 electrician listings we track, the median has just 7 reviews, and 57.6% have fewer than ten. If you are under 23, more reviews will help you in every town at once, and that beats any other fix.
It also wins for emergency calls. Someone with no power at 9 p.m. searches on a phone and taps the first profile with a call button and good stars. Only 13.5% of electrician listings show 24-hour hours. If you take those calls, say so on the profile.
Option 2: a page for each town
This means building a real page on your website for each town: "Electrician in Brookfield," with your services, a few local jobs, and how fast you can get there.
What it involves. One page per town, each with something specific. A panel upgrade you did on a 1960s ranch there. The permit office you deal with. Your typical drive time. Not the same paragraph with the town name swapped. Google is good at spotting copied pages, and homeowners are too.
What it costs. If you write them yourself, a weekend for five or six towns. If someone builds them, typically $150 to $500 a page depending on how much they write and photograph. That assumes you already have a website. If you do not, start there. 34.6% of electrician listings have no website at all.
When it wins. When the towns are farther out, where the map pack will rarely show you. Town pages rank in the regular results below the map, and they help your Google Ads too, because an ad that lands on "Electrician in Brookfield" converts better than one that lands on your homepage. They also give AI search tools something specific to read when someone asks for an electrician in that town.
What the data says about websites
The website gap in our data is wide. Electricians with a website have a median of 11 reviews. Those without have 2. A website does not cause reviews, but the shops that have both are the ones that tend to get found. The benchmark report has the full breakdown, and the website essentials guide lists what every electrician site should have.
Which to do first
Here is the order we suggest.
- If you have fewer than 23 reviews, work the profile first. Reviews, photos, services, hours. This helps everywhere.
- If the towns you want are within 15 minutes, keep working the profile and ask customers in those towns to mention where the job was.
- If the towns are farther, or you already have strong reviews, build town pages. Start with the two towns where you already have a few customers, so you have real jobs to write about.
- Do not open a second Google profile at a fake address. It breaks Google's rules, and a suspension costs you every town.
A simple test
Pick one town. Build one honest page for it this month. Ask your next three customers there for a review that mentions the job. In 60 days, check whether calls from that town went up. If they did, do the next town.
If you would like someone to run your profile, your website or any one service for you, the free 14-day trial needs no card. See the free trial page or text or call (346) 496-4068.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, electricians among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor