Planning a Richmond service area around bridges, the tunnel and drive time

Step 1: put a price on travel time

Start by working out what an hour on the road costs you. Include the technician's wage and benefits, the vehicle, and the work you could have done instead.

Example for a two-person Richmond plumbing crew:

• Wages and benefits for two: about $90 an hour
• Vehicle and fuel: about $20 an hour
• Lost billable time: the crew could have billed $150 an hour on another job

That's roughly $260 per hour of travel when the crew could otherwise be working. If a crossing to East Vancouver at 4 p.m. adds 45 minutes each way compared with a Richmond job, the extra trip costs about $390. On a $300 service call, that job loses money. On a $6,000 repipe, it barely matters.

Your figures will differ. The point is to have one, so you can make the decision with numbers instead of instinct.

Step 2: sort Richmond into core, secondary and opportunistic

Richmond's Official Community Plan divides the city into planning areas, shown on the city's planning area key map. They're a handy, complete grid for this exercise. Our areas page describes each one from a trade's point of view.

Take your last six months of jobs, mark each by planning area, and sort them into three groups:

• Core: areas within a short drive of your shop where you already do most of your work and close well. These get your strongest local search effort and most ad budget.
• Secondary: areas you serve regularly but with longer drives or lower close rates. These get pages and some ads, often limited to higher-value job types.
• Opportunistic: areas you'll go to for the right job but don't want to chase. These get no ads and only a mention on your site.

A crew based in Bridgeport might put West Cambie, East Cambie, City Centre and Broadmoor in core, Steveston and Seafair in secondary, and Hamilton or East Richmond in opportunistic. A crew based near Steveston would draw it almost the other way round.

Step 3: decide which neighbouring cities to include

Then make a deliberate choice about each nearby city.

If the answer is "only for big jobs", include the city in your Google service areas only if you're comfortable getting small-job calls from there too, and use ads restricted to high-value work instead.

Step 4: set Google service areas correctly

If customers don't come to your premises, Google expects you to hide your address and list service areas. According to Google's service area help page:

• you can add up to 20 service areas
• areas are set by city, postal code or similar boundaries, not as a radius
• the overall area should generally stay within about two hours' driving time of your business

Practical advice for Richmond crews:

1. List Richmond first, and then only the neighbouring cities you've chosen.
2. Don't list a city to "rank there". Google says local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence. A service-area setting doesn't move your shop closer.
3. Never use a fake address to appear in another city. Google's guidelines don't allow it, and a suspended profile is far more expensive than a weaker map position.
4. Revisit every six months as your job data changes.

Step 5: match your ads to the map

Ad platforms let you choose exactly where ads show. Use that to mirror your three groups:

• Core areas: all profitable job types, full bid levels, all hours you can answer.
• Secondary areas: high-value job types only, or lower bids.
• Neighbouring cities: a separate campaign for large jobs only, limited to hours when the crossing is reasonable.

Run each as its own campaign so you can see cost per booked job by geography. Our cost per booked job guide shows how to set the ceilings.

Also set ads to show to people located in your area, not just people "interested in" it. Otherwise someone in another city researching a relative's house can trigger your ad.

Step 6: build pages that earn the area

For your core and secondary planning areas, a short, genuinely local page can help both search and conversion. Good area pages include:

• real jobs you've done there, with photos and a line about the problem
• the housing types you see most, such as townhouses or older detached homes
• how quickly you can usually get there
• reviews from customers in that area

Avoid creating dozens of near-identical pages with the place name swapped. Google treats those as doorway pages, and customers can tell.

Common mistakes

• Listing all of Metro Vancouver. It brings calls from places you'll regret going.
• Ignoring time of day. A Delta job at 10 a.m. and the same job at 4 p.m. are different jobs.
• Using one campaign for everywhere. You can't see which areas pay.
• Never updating. Your best areas shift as your crew, prices and reputation change.

Next steps

Do the travel-cost calculation this week; it takes twenty minutes. If you'd like help turning it into a Google profile and ad setup, our local search service and paid search service cover it, and the pricing page lists plan costs. You can also get in touch by call, text or email.