Google splits local businesses into two kinds: storefronts customers visit, and service-area businesses that go to the customer. If you run jobs out of a truck or a home office, you are an SAB, and Google expects your profile to hide the home address and list a service area, the towns and counties you actually cover, instead.
The ranking catch: Google still anchors an SAB’s map presence near its real base of operations. Listing twenty towns does not make you rank in all twenty; you will show strongest near home and need other signals, service-area pages on your site, reviews from customers in those towns, local mentions, to compete farther out.
The compliance catch matters too: using a fake or borrowed address to create extra "locations" is against Google’s rules and a common cause of suspensions. The durable play is one honest profile plus a website structured to rank across your real coverage area.
A Wauwatosa electrician working from a home office is a service-area business: the profile shows "serves Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Brookfield" with no street address, and the website’s city pages do the work of reaching the rest of the metro.
Go deeper: Why Your Milwaukee Business Isn’t Showing Up in Google Maps.
This is part of our Google Business Profile work.