Set a service radius you will actually drive, then match your Google Business Profile and your other listings.
A service radius is a promise about a truck and a clock. On your Google Business Profile, that promise is the service area you publish: the places you will take a normal job, measured from the shop, yard, or driveway you actually leave. When the circle is wider than the crew, you decline the job or you take it and lose the afternoon.
Drive time at the hour you roll decides the area. Morning miles stretch by late afternoon. One truck covers less honest ground than four. A quoted, stocked job already on the calendar can sit farther out than a same-day call. Describe the ordinary request, from someone who expects you to show up.
This is the listing work we teach at Ethical AI. The public area should match the work you will finish.
Start from finished jobs
Open the jobs you completed in the last 30 to 90 days. For each one, write the town, the drive time from the place you really left, and whether you would take that same job again on a Thursday at your real dispatch hour.
Sort the list into two piles. One pile is work you finished on time without a second unpaid trip. The other is work that wrecked the route: too far, too late, parts that were not on the van, or a return drive the price never covered. The honest line sits at the far edge of the first pile. A town can look close in miles and still belong in the second pile once afternoon traffic is in the drive.
With more than one crew, sort per truck and publish what this month's trucks can cover. A truck in the shop shrinks the area. A reach that needs a vehicle you do not have waits until that vehicle starts.
Write the result as places you will accept for a standard call. If the profile asks for cities, postal codes, or neighborhoods instead of a drawn circle, enter only the places inside the line. Skip the ring of "maybe" around them. Maybe is how a long drive becomes a posted service area.
Put those same places on your website and on the other small business listings you control. A profile with a short list and a directory that offers the whole region teaches two businesses. Callers believe the wider one. You are the one who refuses the job, or takes it and runs late for everyone already on the board.
What to check before you save
Check the dispatch point. The address you show, or the pin you keep when the street address is hidden, should be the shop, the yard, or the home you leave from. An address picked because it sits in a busier district centers the area on a corner where the van does not start. If you would not load the truck there, center the area on the place you do leave from.
Check the hours against the edge of the area. The far town can be a fair drive at 9 a.m. and a broken day at 4 p.m. If the board closes early, the hours on the profile should say so. A wide area plus late hours says someone is still driving. If the crew is done, shrink the area or shorten the hours so the two agree.
Check the description under the list. A careful area gets undone by the next sentence: a larger region, a highway span, or "and surrounding areas." That sentence is part of the promise. If you will decline the call, the sentence has to decline it too.
Check the person who answers. Give them the list, and give them room to turn down what sits outside it. A clear no before a booking means the radius is working. A yes the van cannot keep means the radius is only a drawing.
Check the reviews you plan to request. Ask only after finished jobs inside the list. A strong note about a city you have stopped driving teaches the old area again.
What to leave out
Leave quoted-only cities in the estimate. On the profile they read as an open offer, and the calls that follow are ordinary ones. Leave a competitor's area alone. Their headcount and their shop are not your crew, and a copied circle brings calls you have not staffed. Leave the full metro off the list. One honest edge is a service area. A tour of every community is a list of future disappointments.
Leave out "and surrounding areas," "greater," and "we go anywhere." Those phrases postpone the decision the profile is supposed to publish. Leave out next year's second crew. Publish the trucks that leave this week, and widen the area only after another crew is hired and stays. Leave out any plan to shape the area so you sit higher in results. This page will not promise a place in the results. The area filters calls so the next one is a job you can finish.
A worked example
This is an example of the method. It is not a client, and it is not a reported result.
A one-truck electrical shop dispatches from Frisco. For a standard call, the owner will drive about twenty-five minutes on a normal weekday afternoon. That reach covers his own city and a short set of neighbors where he already finishes on time. He writes that set once on the profile, in the same words he uses on his website.
A panel change he has already quoted is a different trip. It is on the calendar, the price is set, and the materials are in the van. He may drive farther for that one: the homeowner asked, he priced the drive, and both sides agreed. An outlet repair past the afternoon line stays off the profile. When that call comes in, he declines before he offers a window. Large jobs get a conversation. The listing stays narrow.
After a finished job inside the list, he asks once for a review in the customer's own words. He sends no city names to paste, and he pays nothing for the note.
Pressure-test the sentence
Write one sentence you could say on the phone. Name where you leave from, the places you will take a standard call, and the kind of job that stays inside that line. Then read it five ways. If a draft inserts a town you did not type, delete the town.
Start with Claude. Paste the sentence and the towns from your finished-job pile. Ask for a shorter version a homeowner can understand, using only towns you supplied. Don't have Claude? No problem. Read it aloud and strike any place name that was not in the job pile.
Hand what remains to GPT. Ask it to mark any line that promises a drive, a same-day visit, or an hour you did not write. Don't have GPT? No problem. Ask the person who answers the phone which calls they would still accept, and close those leaks in the wording.
Hand it to Grok with this month's crew count. Ask whether the sentence still holds if one truck is down and you are the only driver. Don't have Grok? No problem. Cross out towns that work only when every truck starts.
Hand it to Gemini. Ask it to read as a customer who lives just outside the line. If that customer would still expect a visit, the sentence is too soft. Don't have Gemini? No problem. Ask a friend who does not know your routes whether they would call from past the line, and tighten the words until they would not.
Hand it to Perplexity with the matching lines from your website and from one other listing you control. Ask whether the texts promise the same area. Don't have Perplexity? No problem. Read only the place names on the profile, the website, and that listing. Keep the narrower promise, and edit the wider page until it matches.
One tool is enough if you keep the rule. Extra drafts make a sloppy sentence easier to catch. They do not make a wider area true.
How to ask for reviews inside the line
Wait until the work is done and the customer has seen it. Ask once. Say that a review is optional. Ask them to mention the job, and leave your coverage out of the request. Skip dictated city names. Skip any ask aimed at a customer outside the area. Skip payment, and skip a discount tied to the review. You want a record of work you did in a place you said you would serve.
If an older review names a city you have dropped, leave the customer alone and update the profile and the other listings. On the website, one sentence can say that standard calls stay on the current list and that farther jobs are quoted first. Match the profile on the place names. A paragraph that reopens the old towns is a second radius.
The next pass
This week, build the list from jobs you finished. Cut every place you would hesitate to drive at the hour you actually leave. Make the profile, the website, and your other listings say that same list. If you want a second set of eyes on the list before you save it, Book a short call.
Ethical AI · Frisco, TX · 469-669-2728
