How to plan a service area across Burnaby and its neighbours

Why a circle on a map is the wrong starting point

A radius treats every direction as equal, and Burnaby isn't built that way. The city is a long strip with Burrard Inlet to the north and the Fraser River to the south, cut across by Highway 1, rail lines and large parks such as Burnaby Lake and Deer Lake. Ten kilometres east along a clear road can be quicker than three kilometres across a park or through a busy town centre at rush hour.

There's also a ranking reason. Google lists relevance, distance and prominence as the main factors in local results. Distance is measured from the searcher to your business, so you'll naturally rank best close to your base. A huge service area doesn't change that. It just dilutes your effort.

Step 1: Pull your last 12 months of jobs

Export or write down every job from the past year with three details: the postal code, the job value and whether it made money. If you track gross margin, include that too.

Then sort the list three ways:

• By area: group postal codes into Burnaby town centres, villages and neighbouring cities.
• By value: which areas produced your largest jobs?
• By profit: which areas actually made money once travel time and parking are counted?

Most owners are surprised. A neighbourhood that "feels busy" often produces many small, low-margin jobs, while a quieter one delivers fewer but better jobs.

Step 2: Measure real drive times

Next, check how long it takes to reach each area from your base or wherever your crew usually starts. Do this at the times you typically travel, such as 8 am and 3 pm, not at midnight.

Make a simple table:

These are example figures only; use your own. The point is to see where the travel cost eats into a job's margin. A 30-minute drive each way is an hour of paid time that the customer doesn't see on the invoice.

Step 3: Draw three rings, not one

With job data and drive times side by side, sort your areas into three groups:

1. Core: areas where jobs are profitable, frequent and quick to reach. This is where you want to dominate the map.
2. Secondary: areas you'll serve gladly but with a minimum job size or a travel charge. Reach them through pages and carefully targeted ads.
3. Outside: areas you'll decline or refer on. Exclude them from ads entirely.

For a plumber based near Edmonds, the core might be Edmonds, Highgate, Royal Oak and Metrotown; the secondary ring might add New Westminster and the Lougheed area; Richmond and North Vancouver, across the water, might be outside.

Step 4: Match your Google Business Profile

Now make your profile reflect the core and secondary rings:

• Address: if customers don't come to you, Google allows service-area businesses to hide the address and list service areas instead.
• Service areas: list the areas you actually serve, not every city in Metro Vancouver.
• Categories and services: choose the primary category that best describes your main work, and list services in plain words.
• Photos and posts: use real jobs from your core areas, captioned naturally ("bathroom drain repair, Royal Oak townhouse").

Remember, the map will still favour searchers close to your base. Use the profile to be accurate, not to stretch.

Step 5: Match your ads

Google Ads lets you choose whether to reach people physically in your areas or those who've shown interest in them; its geographic targeting help page explains the settings. For most trades, reaching people who are physically there is the safer choice.

Set up campaigns so each ring has its own budget:

• Core campaign: most of the budget, bids high enough to appear often.
• Secondary campaign: a smaller budget, with ads that mention any minimum or travel charge.
• Excluded areas: added as exclusions so a busy Richmond search never spends Burnaby money.

Schedule ads only for the hours you can answer. Our Google Ads service works through this in detail.

Step 6: Match your website

Your site should describe the same area in words a customer recognises. That usually means:

• one clear "areas we serve" section on the home page, grouped by ring;
• a small number of area pages for your core, each with real jobs and local detail, not a swapped place name;
• secondary areas mentioned honestly, with any travel charge stated.

Use the names people actually use. The City's plan uses terms like Town Centres and Urban Villages, but customers often say "North Burnaby" or "the Heights". Use both where accurate. Our websites service covers how to structure these pages.

Step 7: Measure, then widen

Check results across your area, not from your own phone. Grid rank-tracking tools show your map position from many points around Burnaby. Compare that with where enquiries come from each month.

Expand only when the core is strong. A useful rule: when you hold a top-three map position for your main service across most of your core grid, and the phone is busy, it's time to promote a secondary area to core.

Common mistakes

• Listing 30 cities on your profile and website, hoping to rank in all of them.
• Using a friend's address or a virtual office to appear central. It breaks Google's rules and risks suspension.
• Ignoring parking and building access when pricing town-centre jobs.
• Never revisiting the plan after hiring, buying a second van or changing services.

Putting it together

A clear service area makes every other channel cheaper: ads stop paying for distant clicks, local SEO concentrates on winnable ground, and your site speaks directly to the people you can serve. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on your map, the local SEO service starts with exactly this exercise, and the areas page describes each part of Burnaby. To talk it through, call, text or email. We're a marketing service, not a contractor; we help you decide where to compete, and your team does the work.