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Google is Rolling Out ‘Google Screened’ Local Service Ads to More Businesses

Sep 4, 2020 | 2020, September

Google’s Local Service Ads, is nothing but a locally-focused, simplified, pay-per-lead program available to specific industries. To qualify, businesses must undergo a screening process where they submit their insurance, license, certification, and degree details. Then, Google conducts a background check to verify that the documents submitted by the business are accurate and that the company is in good standing.

The business must also have a verified Google My Business listing with an average review score of 3.0 or higher.

As soon as all the necessary processes are over, the business is approved and brought into Google’s Local Service Ads (LSA) dashboard. This allows your brand name to show up in the coveted LSA Carousel:

Google has been offering two different types of Local Service Ads:

1. Google Screened – This helps professionals like architects, lawyers, real estate agents, and tax specialists build a trusted reputation online. It has been in beta until now.

Trusted Reputation Online

Image Source: https://www.google.com

2. Google Guaranteed – This includes almost all home services industries, like plumbers, carpet cleaners, electricians, and HVAC specialists. The best part is, services that cannot exceed $2000 per Google profile are backed by a money-back guarantee.

Google Guarantee

Image Source: Image Source: https://www.google.com

Google received immense success with the Google Screened program. Now that it’s out of beta, they are expanding the business categories that can participate and rolling it out globally.

Actionable Strategy – Before you start, you need to know if your clients are local. You’ll also have to check if they are eligible to participate in these ads, because the cost per lead is dramatically lower than other platforms and early adoption goes a long way. If you can be the first in your industry and region, that means low cost leads until everyone else catches on.

Once the competition grows, your listing will be ranked within the carousel based on your Google Reviews and your responsiveness to leads. It’s necessary to manage your ad timings meticulously, because you don’t want to miss any calls while you have your ads running. But you don’t need to worry much, as the management of these campaigns is not complicated.