Trojan Digital Marketing manages Google Business Profiles for Indianapolis businesses that want the map listing to match the business customers actually reach. We're based in Indianapolis, and our own profile is a service-area profile with no public address, so we work under the same rules our clients do.
Questions, answered.
Local context
- Beech Grove, Lawrence, Southport and the town of Speedway sit inside Marion County but outside the consolidated city of Indianapolis, and they still govern themselves. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Excluded Cities
- Unigov took effect January 1, 1970 and grew the city from 82 to 402 square miles. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Structure of Unigov
Can one profile show in the map pack across all of Indianapolis?
Distance is one of Google's three main local ranking factors, so a profile usually shows more often near where the business is based. Better relevance and prominence help everywhere, but they can't erase distance in a 402 square mile city. We set expectations by area before the work starts.
Should I list Speedway, Beech Grove, Lawrence or Southport as separate service areas?
If you work there, yes. They're separate municipalities inside Marion County, so naming them shows customers there that you serve them. Google allows up to 20 service areas in total.
Can I have a separate profile for each side of town?
Only with a real, staffed location on each side. Each location gets a single profile under Google's rules, and a service-area business keeps one profile for its central office.
Will adding Indianapolis to my business name help?
Google asks for your real-world name and says extra words could get the profile suspended. Put the city in your service areas and your services in the services section instead.
Are review requests part of the work?
Yes. We help you pick a point in the job to ask every customer, write a neutral request and decide who answers reviews. We don't offer incentives, ask only happy customers or tell anyone what to write.
“…drove a noticeable uptick in leads within just a few weeks…”
“I had a great experience working with Jeff…”
Jeff Clerisier founded Trojan Digital Marketing in March 2018.
We have more than 1,400 live websites.
We’re based in Indianapolis, where the city and Marion County share one government, Unigov.
We also work with clients across the United States.
How Google picks the businesses in the Indianapolis map
- Business
- Start from the real business.
- Coverage
- Identify the places it actually serves.
- Office
- Do not turn a service area into an invented office.
Google's local ranking help page lists the three factors that matter most. Relevance is how well a profile matches the search. Distance is how far the business is from the person searching. Prominence is how well known the business is, which Google says includes how many websites link to it and how many reviews it has. The same page says there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking.
Read more
Distance matters more here than most owners expect. When Unigov merged the city with most of Marion County in 1970, Indianapolis grew from 82 to 402 square miles, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. A search typed near Park 100 in Pike Township and the same search near Fountain Square can show different businesses. So we check a profile from several spots across the county before we call anything a result.
List service areas the way Marion County is actually built
A service-area business can set up to 20 service areas, and Google's service area help page says the full area should stay within roughly a two hour drive of your base. Four places inside Marion County still govern themselves outside the consolidated city: Beech Grove, Lawrence, Southport and the town of Speedway, as the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis explains. If you work in them, name them in your list. Someone in Speedway may search with Speedway in mind, and your profile can show you serve it.
Read more
Past the county line, the federal metro name is now Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, and the Indiana Business Research Center counts 11 counties in it, from Boone and Hamilton to Johnson and Shelby. We list the towns your crew or team really covers and leave out the ones that would only pad the list.
Keep one profile for each real location
Google's guidelines for representing a business allow a single profile for each location. A service-area business keeps one profile for its central office, and a rented mailbox or an unstaffed virtual office isn't eligible. We won't build extra profiles to cover other sides of town. If you open a second staffed location, it can have its own profile, and we'll help you set it up properly.
Use your real business name
The same guidelines ask for your real-world name, as it appears on your signs, website and stationery. Google says extra words in the name aren't permitted and could get the profile suspended. Adding Indianapolis or a service phrase to your name breaks that rule. Your city belongs in your service areas, and your services belong in the categories and services sections.
Match categories and services to the work you sell
The primary category tells Google what kind of business you are, so we pick the one that fits most of your work. We add secondary categories only where Google's list has a true match. Each service gets a short description in your words. When a service shows on your profile but your website never explains it, we'll flag the page you're missing, since the profile sends people to your site.
Ask for reviews the way Google allows
Google's review policy bars businesses from offering anything for a review, asking only happy customers and asking for specific content. So the request goes to every customer at a set point in the job, in plain and neutral words. Someone on your team answers each review, good or bad. We don't write reviews, and we don't screen out customers who might be critical.
District pages for parts of town with their own pull
Some Indianapolis districts work like small markets of their own, with their own visit patterns and parking. We've written separate Maps pages for Mass Ave, Fountain Square, Castleton, Keystone Crossing and Park 100. Start with one of those if your customers come to a storefront or office in that district.
What we measure and report
We agree with you on the searches that matter and the spots in the county to check them from, then record them the same way each time. Profile calls, direction requests and website visits each tell a different part of the story. A directions request means more to a showroom, while a call means more to a business that drives to its customers. We report what changed and what we couldn't verify, without treating one screenshot as the whole city.
Start with the profile you already have
Send us your profile link, your website and the towns you serve. We'll review the public information and tell you which access we'd need for the rest. Your business keeps ownership of the profile the whole time. For the wider search plan, see our Indianapolis SEO and AEO work, and Google Business Profile optimization covers the full service for businesses outside the city.
Sources & further reading
- Google on how local ranking works
- Google guidance on service areas
- Google guidelines for representing a business
- Google Maps user contributed content policy
- Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Structure of Unigov
- Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, Excluded Cities
- Indiana Business Research Center, the 2023 metro landscape for Indiana
