Local Services Ads & Google Guaranteed

Why this is usually the first place to spend

Roofer? Plumber? HVAC? Tree service? These ads sit at the very top of the page - above the regular search ads, above the map, above everything.

They carry a badge saying Google checked you out. And you pay when a customer contacts you, not when one clicks. For a home-service trade that is usually the best math on the page.

You pay per lead, not per click

With search ads you pay for the click. Ten people click, one calls, you paid for ten.

Here you pay when a customer calls or messages you through the ad. The nine who looked and moved on cost you nothing.

That does not automatically make it cheaper. A lead costs more than a click, and it should. What it makes it is easier to judge - you are looking at one number, not a funnel. What did a lead cost, and did it turn into work?

You set a weekly budget and Google spends up to it. Phone already full? Turn it down. Slow week? Turn it up.

The badge, and which one you get

There are two of them and they get mixed up constantly.

Google Guaranteed

The green checkmark, for home-service trades. Google checks your license, your insurance and your background - and backs the job, so if the customer is not satisfied Google may reimburse what they paid, up to a limit it sets.

Google Screened

The same idea for professional services - lawyers, financial planners, real estate agents. License and background checks, and the badge, but no work guarantee attached to it.

Either way we handle the paperwork: license, insurance certificate, business registration, and background checks for you and your staff.

It is not instant. The checks run on Google's clock, not ours, and they are the most common reason a launch date slips. So we start them first, before anything else, and let the rest of the setup happen while they run.

What decides who shows up, and it is not bidding

There are no keywords to bid on here. No ad copy to write. You cannot buy your way to the top of these.

What moves you up is closer to how a person would judge you:

• Your review score, and how many reviews you have
• How close you are to the person searching
• Whether you answer - Google watches how you handle the leads it sends you
• The hours you say you are open, and whether anyone picks up during them
• Complaints, and whether your license and insurance checks are current

So most of the work that improves your ranking here happens inside your business, not inside an ad account. We help with the reviews, because that is the biggest lever and most businesses simply are not asking.

And answer the phone. A missed call is a lead you already paid for, and it quietly costs you the next one too.

You should not pay for a bad lead

You will get bad ones. Everybody does. A wrong number. A robocall. Somebody two counties away. Somebody wanting a job you don't do.

Those can be disputed, and Google credits the ones it agrees with. But they have to be filed, week after week - and that is the part that stops happening once an account has been running a while.

We file them. Nobody notices this work, and it comes straight off what your leads cost.

Where this does not work

• Not every trade qualifies. Google decides which job types are eligible and it varies by area, so we check that before you plan a budget around it.
• It will not fill a slow week on its own. Lead volume depends on how many people near you search for what you do, and no budget invents demand that isn't there.
• It does not replace search ads. It covers what it covers, and Google Ads picks up the rest.
• If your reviews are thin, fix that first. Here more than anywhere else on Google, your reviews are the ranking.

We've built this for

• Trades & Home Services
• Construction
• Professional Services