Category vs. Coverage Area: What’s the difference?
A Category describes what your Business does. A Coverage Area describes where that Business participates or is eligible to appear within East Texas Locals.
They answer two different questions
Categories and Coverage Areas both help determine how a Business fits into the East Texas Locals Directory, but they describe different things.
A Category answers: What kind of Business or service is this?
A Coverage Area answers: Where does this Business participate or appear within ETL?
For example, a roofing company might have a Category related to roofing services while its Coverage Areas determine the ETL communities or areas where that Business has Directory coverage.
Categories describe the type of Business or service
Categories organize Businesses by the work, services, or subjects they represent.
They make it easier for someone looking for a particular type of local Business to find relevant options in the Directory.
A Category does not tell ETL where the Business is physically located or where it has Directory coverage.
Coverage Areas describe where ETL coverage applies
Coverage Areas, sometimes called Territories, are geographic groupings used by East Texas Locals.
They are separate from the Business’s physical address and separate from a service area the Business may advertise on its own.
Adding a location or saying that your Business serves a particular community does not automatically add that community as an ETL Coverage Area.
Your Business may use both
A Business’s Directory presence can involve both Categories and Coverage Areas.
That means two Businesses in the same Category may not necessarily have the same Coverage Areas, and Businesses participating in the same Coverage Area may represent very different Categories.
Changing one does not automatically change the other.
What about an Official Partner Category?
The protected Category connected to an Official Partnership is different from an ordinary Directory Category.
A Business can appear in an ordinary Category without being that Category’s Official Partner.
See “Featured versus Official Partner” and “Ordinary Directory placement versus the Official Partner Category” for more information about that distinction.