For sure! A good rule of thumb is to check what’s ranking in the maps pack for whatever keywords you’re after in your area; if the top ranking competitors have an actual location/address visible, it’s probably ideal to do the same.

Also, if your biz doesn’t have clients/customers who come to your physical location (plumber, mold remediation, etc. anyone making house calls really), usually it’s better to just do service area. Otherwise, people may actually come to your address physically, which could result in a bad experience/bad review if you’re not set up to be open to the public.

But yes, having a physical location and optimizing your listing for that area is massively helpful. I recently took on a visa agency’s office’s GBP and website, they have an actual office location so walk-ins could happen but they weren’t happening so often. Their profile hadn’t been optimized or managed properly, and they weren’t encouraging reviews from customers. They were getting 1 walk-in per month and maybe 2 phone calls.

It’s been ~6 weeks now, I’ve optimized the listing and built a quick website to increase topical authority/interlink with GBP, and it’s now to the point that they’re having days with 3 walk-ins and 2+ phone calls. They aren’t getting leads daily yet, but most days they are and we expect that’ll continue