Getting found in local search

Where families look first

Someone whose relative has just been arrested often searches for bail bonds with the name of the town or the jail. The results with a map, a phone number and a call button come from business listings, so the listing is where your number has to be right.

What Google asks of a listing

Google's guidelines for Business Profiles set out what a listing may show. These are the ones that matter most for a phone number:

• Use the business's real-world name. Extra details in the name, such as taglines or places, are not allowed.
• Use a local phone number in place of a central call center number whenever possible.
• The phone number must be under the business's direct control.
• A business that serves customers away from its own address should hide that address and list the areas it serves.

Sources: Google Business Profile Help: rules for representing a business on Google; Google Business Profile Help: service areas for service-area and hybrid businesses

The word number in your listing

Use the word form on your website, signs, cards and vehicles, and give the same number in your listing, so every place points to one line.

Write the business name, address and phone number the same way in every directory you appear in. A listing with an old number sends callers to a line nobody answers.

Service areas for bail agents

Bail agents often meet clients at the jail, the court or the family's home. Google calls a business that serves customers where they are, not at its own address, a service-area business, and lets it list up to 20 service areas. If clients do come to your office, the address can stay.

List the counties you write bonds in, and give each office a number with an area code that county knows.

A number for each county you serve

Source: Google Business Profile Help: service areas for service-area and hybrid businesses