As a Google Premier Partner, our team has set up and run hundreds of Google Local Service accounts for its clients. Google Local Services are search engine ads that are designed to help businesses get leads from customers who are located in their area.
Google Ads vs. Google Local Services
Unlike traditional Google Ads that are “pay-per-click”, Local Services Ads are “pay-per-lead”, meaning the business will only pay Google for leads that they actually receive in the form of phone calls or messages. While a reputable Google Ads company can run a highly successful ads campaign, many home service companies have a sour taste in their mouth from running poorly managed campaigns in the past. The best part of local services is that you aren’t draining your bank account for clicks… it’s a low risk, high reward service that can be hard to come by. You are only paying money when someone gives your business a call!
Local Services Ads typically appear at the top of search engine results pages for queries that are seeking out a specific service, such as “Roofing Contractor Near Me”, “Pest Control in {City Name}”, etc. These ads typically include:
- Name of the business
- Photos
- Average star rating sourced from the business’s Google Business Profile
- Business hours
- Phone number
- Couple other pieces of basic information about the business.
If you are a business owner that wants your Google Local Services Ads to show up at the top of search engine results pages above your competitors, there are a few different ways that you can optimize your LSAs in order to do so, which we’ll cover below! If you have any additional questions about Google Local Services Ads or if you’d like assistance setting up and optimizing your LSAs, please contact our team at Boston Web Marketing today!
Tips to Optimize Your Local Services Account
If you are managing your own Google Local Services account and want to take a hack at optimizing it as much as possible prior to reaching out to a professional, take a look at some of these tips below!
1. Gain Positive Reviews
One factor that can impact how your Local Services Ads rank against your competitors is the number of reviews you have received on your Google Business Profile and your average rating (on a scale from 1 to 5 stars). Having a higher average rating and more reviews can also help build immediate trust with prospective customers and may result in your business getting more leads. As Google states in their “Local Services Help” guide, “Providers with higher star ratings and more reviews stand out and typically book more jobs”.
Whether you are running local services or not, you should build out a review strategy. Here are some ways you can get more reviews to your Google Business Profile:
- Send customers a custom link to leave a review after you finish a job
- Kindly ask your customers after a project is complete if they could leave a review on Google for you
- Use software such as Podium that can automatically send out email and text review links when a project is done
- Create QR codes that link to your Google profile and integrate them on business cards, and hand them out to customers before and after jobs
2. Monitor Your Bidding Strategy:
This is where we find that local services gets a little tricky for many people. Google has two bidding settings that users can select from.
- Automated bidding: The first option which is automated billing puts it in Googles hands to get as many leads a possible with your monthly budget. This is the setting that we recommend ever user starts at. If your campaign is optimized well you can get a lot of leads at a reliable cost per conversion and it takes the guesswork out of trying to choose a price.
- Manual bidding: The second option is manual billing which tells Google the max you are willing to spend per lead. When we have a campaign that is slow off the ground to start, we recommend clients set a max they are willing to spend for leads. Many clients are willing to spend much more money than what the automated billing lead will be, you’d be surprised!
Finally, be sure to look at what your average weekly budget is. It is extremely important to understand that Google Local Services has a lower barrier of entry compared to its counterpart, Google Ads. Because of this, there are a lot of companies out there that are vying for a small amount of real estate. So, if you are in a metropolitan area and have a $200 weekly budget, Google will look at you and won’t consider you a viable candidate for its space. Try upping your weekly budget, and if you start getting leads and are spending more than you’d like, you can always come back halfway through the month and pause your ads.
3. Regularly Update Your Google Business Profile
Another way that you can optimize your business’s Local Services Ads rankings and performance is by regularly updating your Google Business Profile with updates, offers, and other business information. You should make sure that your Google Business Profile is completely flushed out with all the information you have the option of providing. Once your profile is fully completed, you can regularly post updates and offers in order to keep your business profile engaging. Additionally, you should make sure that your business hours are accurate; be sure to update these whenever you have hours changes or are closed on certain holidays.
4. Use High-Quality Photos
The next way to further optimize your Google Local Services Ads is to regularly add new, high-quality photos to your ads. Adding quality photos to your Local Services Ad profile will make the listing more appealing to potential customers and help them easily visualize the types of services you offer. You can add new photos to your Local Services Ads by visiting the “Profile and Budget” page in your LSA Profile.
PS: Make sure when you are adding photos to your profile that the photos don’t include your business phone number clearly. Google uses a tracking phone number to charge your leads so they don’t want people calling you off of the phone number on your photo. If they see a phone number they will block your photo and it wont show up on your profile.
5. Quickly Respond To Leads
One more way to optimize your Local Services Ads is to respond to leads as quickly as possible once you have received them. Responsiveness, which measures if you are answering the phone when an LSA lead comes in, and response time, which measures how quickly you are responding to leads that come in the form of messages, are both extremely important rankings factors for Local Services Ads.
In order to improve how quickly you’re able to respond to leads, you should make sure that your Local Services Ads are only running during your business hours when you’re ready to pick up the phone or respond to messages! If you are a newer business and want to put in the work by answering the phone later in the day, you can have your ads show up early and go away later… just make sure you are ready.
6. Additional Settings to Double-Check
Service Area: Within Google Local Serivces, you can select the exact zip codes, towns or counties that you’d like to get leads from. We see a lot of customers when they start creating this account only pick a few towns right next to their office as they would love a shorter drive time. This makes perfect sense but if your campaign has been running for weeks and nothing is coming through, try expanding how far your ads will show.
Message Leads: Google’s auto default setting to send you phone call leads. Double-check your profile to make sure that you have message leads turned on. Some people don’t want to pick up the phone, so make sure your ad is attractive to as many people as possible.
Make sure you are receiving message Leads: If you have message leads turned on in Google Local Services, make sure you have a reliable email address added under “Account Settings” that is going to be checking their email on a regular basis. Remember that response time is important so you want to have someone ready to respond right away when you get a lead in via messages.
Business Bio: All local services accounts have a business bio section where you can add taglines and heading that are relevant to your business. These include slogans such as “Locally-owned & Operated” or “Free estimate”. Make sure you review this section and that you have honest but also call to action worthy selections made that will make homeowners want to reach out to you.
Contact Boston Web Marketing!
If you have any additional questions about Google Local Services Ads, please contact our team at Boston Web Marketing today! Our SEO & Google Ads specialists help businesses in virtually every industry achieve higher search results and gain more leads! Give us a call today at (857) 526-0096 or fill out the contact form on our website, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible!