Local Services Ads sit at the very top of Google — above the map pack, above the search ads, above everything. You pay per lead rather than per click, and the Google Guaranteed badge does trust work that no ad copy can buy.
Why LSA sits above everything else
The contact action is built into the ad unit, so friction is near zero. For most trades, LSA delivers the lowest cost per booked job of any channel available — and a surprising number of contractors still aren’t running it.
Getting Google Guaranteed approved
- Active state and local business licenses for your trade
- General liability insurance, usually $1M or more
- Background checks for the business and field-facing staff
- A verified, complete Google Business Profile matching your legal details
Approval typically takes one to two weeks. Mismatched business names and addresses across your license, insurance and Business Profile are the most common cause of delay — align them before you apply.
Is your market still available?
We work with one contractor per trade, per city — so our clients never bid against each other. Check whether your market is still open.
Profile and category optimization
Select every service category you genuinely perform. Each category you skip is a set of searches you simply don’t appear in. Set service areas by zip, keep business hours accurate — responsiveness is a ranking input — and keep review volume climbing.
Bidding and budget
Start on Maximize Leads with a conservative weekly budget. Once you have thirty or more leads of history, move to a target cost per lead slightly under your historical average and let it stabilize before touching it again.
Disputing bad leads
Spam, out-of-area and wrong-service leads are creditable — but only if you dispute them inside the window. Put a recurring weekly task on it. Contractors who skip disputes routinely leave several hundred dollars a month with Google.
Run LSA alongside search rather than instead of it. Together they cover both the trust-first and the intent-first homeowner.