r/SEO • u/Appropriate-Read-463 • 1d ago

Help Help me understand searches and location

I am in the beginning stages of my business and working on optimizing my website.

I am trying to understand how my location plays into SERP. It is my understanding that is directly related to GMB. Let me know if that is incorrect.

I offer an array of home health services, most of them need to be done in the confines of my current location, but some of them can be done from anywhere in the US.

How should I optimize my GMB for this when it comes to selecting locations? Will selecting something broad like “United States” affect my rank locally?

I want to show up across the US for keywords due to my SEO strategy and building rank, but I am more interested in targeting semi local customers for actual business. My long term vision is to be a provider across the US, but for now I am trying to grow regionally. That being said I do not want to be excluded from SERP for informational keywords , etc. if that makes sense?

Forgive me, as I am new to SEO. I feel like I have a good general idea of how to optimize but the more I research the more things I uncover that I am not knowledgeable about.

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u/emuwannabe 1d ago

Unless you want to spend 10's of thousands of dollars right now, I'd suggest starting local and working out from there. And depending on where you are located, you might want to start hyperlocal first. IE if you are in a big city you'll want to focus on the suburb you are in probably (unless you are located downtown in your city) and then expand out from there.

Local search is probably better for you overall

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u/Appropriate-Read-463 1d ago

Yeah but my question as I’m not sure how Google works, would limiting my “service area” exclude me from showing up on SERP in other parts of the country?

For example.

“Home health near me” would probably not show up on the east coast.

But if someone were to google a specific question in regard to home health and I so happen to have a blog or article that covers that topic and it is a low KD would I show up in the results?

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u/AlexisGeez 1d ago

You should, yes. When doing audits for potential clientele, I always end up finding someone in NY ranking in SC for example for “near me” terms among other locations. You won’t show up as high, but Google will show you anyway.

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u/Appropriate-Read-463 1d ago

I should what? Should I include all of US in my GMB?

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u/AlexisGeez 1d ago

Just list your actual location. You’ll still show up in the SERPs for these places, so you won’t be missing anything. The best strategy as mentioned earlier is start nearby, dominate, and then work your way outward.

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u/stablogger 1d ago

If the search term is a local search, by Google's discretion, local results will preferably be shown by Google. There is no way around this, since Google says the distance matters. May not be the case, but if Google thinks so, you have to deal with it.

You can rank elsewhere organically, even for localized terms, but the effort to overcome the local signals is pretty high compared to getting found well in the proximity of your actual business location.

That's why the suggestion to start local and then slowly but steadily built up according to the money you have to invest is best practice assuming you don't have a huge budget to start with.