Local Services Ads
There is one slot on a search for your trade that sits higher than anything else on this site can reach. You cannot bid your way into it, you have to be verified for it, and you only pay when somebody actually contacts you.
What it costs to skip it
If you are running Google Ads without this, your ad is sitting below a competitor who is not paying for the people who clicked and wandered off. They pay when the phone rings. You pay either way, and you are paying it for second position.
In a 2026 study of 500 home services searches, Local Services Ads appeared in 28% of them, and every single time they appeared they held the top of the page. That is more than a quarter of the searches in your trade where the first thing anybody sees is a business that took the trouble to get verified.
Source: WebFX, May 2026, 500 searches across 100 home services keywords.
The badge
Every other position on a results page goes to whoever bids highest or ranks best. This one has a gate in front of it. To carry the blue Google Verified check you pass a background check and have your license and insurance verified, and no competitor gets past that on a Tuesday afternoon by raising a budget.
That cuts both ways in your favor. The homeowner choosing between three companies they have never heard of gets a signal that somebody actually checked, at the exact moment they are deciding who to let into their house. And you get an advantage that stays yours for as long as the paperwork stays current, which is a rare thing to be able to say about anything in search.
One thing worth knowing while you research: in October 2025 Google folded Google Guaranteed, Google Screened and License Verified into this single blue check. The verification behind it did not change, so older write-ups describing those separate badges are describing the same gate you would be going through.
What decides who shows
Every Local Services Ad now has to be linked to an active, verified Google Business Profile, with details that match across both. Which means the profile work is not a separate project from this one.
Reviews
Your Local Services Ads and your Google Business Profile are now tied together, so the reviews you already have are the reviews doing the work here. This is the single biggest reason the two services belong in the same hands.
Responsiveness
Google watches whether leads get picked up and how quickly. A business that misses calls gets shown less, which is the rare ranking factor you can improve this afternoon without spending anything.
Proximity
Same constraint as the map pack. You cannot move your building, but the service area you set and the jobs you actually accept both feed how Google reads your coverage.
Budget
Leads stop when the weekly budget runs out, so a budget set too low quietly takes you off the page for the back half of every week. Managing that pacing is most of the ongoing job.
If your profile is thin, this will underperform no matter what you spend, which is why profile work at $250/mo is usually the first thing rather than the second.
Against Google Ads
Local Services Ads
Google Ads
If you qualify for both, start here and add Google Ads underneath it. This slot is higher and you only pay on contact, so it is the better first dollar. Ads then pick up the searches this does not cover, which is most of them.
Pricing
Flat $350/month to manage it, never a share of your lead spend. Your lead budget is billed by Google directly. Same reasoning as everywhere else on this site: a percentage would make me the person advising you on your budget while quietly earning more every time it went up.
The fee covers getting through verification, keeping the profile and the ad account in sync, pacing the weekly budget so you do not vanish every Thursday, chasing the reviews that decide your position, and disputing the junk leads. That last one is the part most businesses stop doing by month two, and it is money.
Worth knowing before you start
Verification is not instant. Background checks and license and insurance review take time, so this is not the channel to pick if you need the phone ringing this week. Google Ads is the one with no waiting. The sensible order is often to start ads now and have this verified in the background.
Questions
They are the listings that appear right at the top of Google for service searches, above the regular ads and above the map. Unlike Google Ads you are billed per lead rather than per click, so you pay when somebody actually calls or messages you, not when they click and leave. They are limited to certain industries, mostly home services and some professional services, and you have to pass verification before you can run them.
It is the same slot, under a newer badge. In October 2025 Google folded Google Guaranteed, Google Screened and License Verified into one blue Google Verified check, and the money-back guarantee that used to sit behind the old badge was retired at the same time. The verification behind it did not change: background check, license and insurance. Plenty of articles still describe the old guarantee, so if you have read about it, that is why it is not in your account.
A background check, and verification of your license and insurance for the trades that require them. It is genuinely a gate, and it takes time, which is also what makes the badge worth having: your competitor cannot buy their way past it this afternoon. You also need an active, verified Google Business Profile linked to the account, with details that match.
It varies enormously by trade and by market. Industry reporting puts home services somewhere around $25 to $80 a lead, but a competitive plumbing market and a quiet specialty trade are nothing alike, so treat that as a shape rather than a quote. You set a weekly budget and Google spends against it.
You can dispute it. Wrong service, outside your area, spam, or somebody who was clearly never going to book. Google credits the ones it agrees with. Filing those disputes properly and consistently is unglamorous and it is a real part of what the management fee is for, because nobody does it reliably on their own.
Local Services Ads sit above Google Ads on the page, bill per lead instead of per click, and need verification to run. Google Ads reach every industry, give you far more control over keywords, copy and landing pages, and can be running tomorrow. Most trades that qualify for both should run Local Services Ads first, because it is the top slot and you only pay on contact. From $250/mo covers Google Ads management if you want both.
Flat $350/month to manage it, never a share of your lead spend. Your lead budget is billed by Google directly. The same logic as everything else here: if I took a cut of your lead spend, I would be the person advising you on your budget while earning more every time it went up.
Free audit
The audit covers your Google Business Profile, your site and where you currently stand, which is most of what decides whether this will work for you. It runs automatically and lands in your inbox in about three minutes.
If your trade is not eligible, or your profile needs work before this is worth turning on, that is what I will tell you.
