At One Click SEO, we're committed to helping you achieve the best possible results from your online advertising. This guide provides essential steps to optimize your Google Local Services Ads (LSA) and drive more high-quality leads to your business.
By understanding and implementing these strategies, you'll improve your ad performance, attract more customers, and see a stronger return on your investment.
Our Goal: More of the Right Leads For You
We know that not all leads are created equal. Our approach focuses on not just generating more leads, but more of the right leads – the ones that turn into paying customers. These steps will help you achieve that.
Smart Call Handling: Qualify Quickly, Save Money
- The Problem: Wasting time and money on calls that go nowhere.
- Strategy:
- When answering a call, promptly ask for the caller's "Location and Service". For example, a roofer might ask, "Hi, where are you located, and what roofing service are you interested in?"
- If the caller is vague or unable to provide this information (e.g., "I was wondering if you're hiring"), it's likely not a qualified lead.
- Keep these calls short (under 30-60 seconds) to reduce the likelihood of Google charging you for the lead.
- Why This Matters: Google is more likely to charge you for calls with longer durations, even if they don't result in business. Efficient call handling helps control your ad spend.
- Bottom Line: To optimize your budget, focus on quickly qualifying leads and minimizing time spent on irrelevant calls. Google recommends limiting the duration of these calls and avoiding providing unnecessary details. Don't prioritize being overly friendly; instead, get to the point. An effective technique is to begin by asking for "Location and Service." A caller who cannot provide specific service needs and location details (e.g., "new roof in New Orleans") and instead asks general questions (e.g., "Are you hiring?") is likely not a valuable lead. To avoid being charged for these calls, end them within 30-60 seconds.
GMB - Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and LSA Ads:
- The Requirement: Google requires your LSA account to be connected to a matching GMB profile.
- What You Need To Do:
- Ensure both profiles are managed using the same email account.
- Verify that the business name is an exact match on both profiles.
Why This Matters: This connection verifies your business with Google and ensures proper management of your ads.
Bottom Line: Google now requires that all Local Services Ads (LSA) accounts be connected to a matching Google My Business (GMB) profile. To facilitate this connection, both profiles must be managed using the same email account and have the business name exactly match. You should also have the same services in your GMB as your LSA account.
Don't Miss Opportunities: Call Responsiveness
- The Risk: Missing too many missed calls can hurt your ad placement.
- Our Recommendation:
- While occasional missed calls are normal, prioritize answering or returning calls promptly.
- If you're struggling with call volume, consider using an answering service or One Click SEO's AI Service for answering the call.
- All calls should be answered within 3 rings.
- Any missed call should be called back and noted in the LSA system.
Why This Matters: Google's algorithm considers your responsiveness. Missing calls can lower your ads in the search results, leading to fewer leads.
Budgeting for Success: Get the Visibility You Need
- The Reality: Google's recommended budget might not be enough in competitive markets.
- Our Advice:
- In most cases, you may need to set a budget significantly higher (e.g., 4X) than your initial target. You wont necessarily USE all of that ad spend, but it needs to be there.
- A competitive budget helps your ads rank higher and get seen by more potential customers.
- Closely monitor your budget, since most accounts don't spend their full budget, your budget should be much more than you are expecting to spend.
Why This Matters: Budget is a key ranking factor. To compete effectively and get good placement, you need a strategic budget.
Bottom Line: Achieving good results with LSA often requires a more significant budget than Google suggests. In fact, to compete effectively, you might need to set a budget 4X or higher than your intended spending amount.
Budget plays a crucial role in how your ads are ranked and placed. To get decent placement, you must have a competitive budget. Be aware that many accounts in saturated markets don't even spend their weekly budget in a month. Therefore, continuous monitoring and budget adjustments are essential.
Reviews: Build Trust, Improve Performance
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- The Change: Google now manages LSA reviews strictly through the GMB profile.
- How to Get More Reviews:
- Leverage automated tools like Please Review Us to automate the review process including AI responses and social media posting.
- Always respond to reviews, both positive and negative.
- Consistently seek new reviews to show Google that you're an active business.
- Why This Matters: Reviews are essential for building customer trust and signal to Google that your business is active and engaged. The more great reviews you get, especially from a lead generated through their LSA program, the more often your ad will show in first position.
Business Hours: Be Visible When Customers Are Searching
- The Impact of Hours: Google tends to show businesses that are open when someone searches.
- Our Suggestion:
- Consider extending your business hours to increase your visibility.
- If you extend hours beyond your staff availability, use an answering service to handle calls.
Why This Matters: Showing you're open during searches increases leads, but ensure you can handle the resulting calls.
Bottom Line: Longer business hours can produce more incoming phone leads but if they are missed or not properly documented, those calls will reduce your LSA ad from showing in the first position.
Visual Appeal: Show Your Best Side
- The Importance of Images: Quality images in your LSA profile help attract customers.
- What to Upload:
- Regularly add images to your LSA and GMB profiles.
- Showcase your products/services, team, and happy customers.
- Follow Google's guidelines for image size and content.
Why This Matters: Images create a positive impression, demonstrate your business activity, and improve your ad's effectiveness, visibility and overall appeal.
Bottom Line: Similar to the GMB/GBP advertisers should be uploading quality images to the LSA account regularly and as often as possible. Those images can also be uploaded to the GMB profile. The images help to show activity and consistency on the profile.
The images should be of products or services, team members and customers/clients engaged in business, homes for sale (Realtor/broker), recent work completed (contractor), etc etc. Just be sure to follow Google's guidelines on the image resolution, size, and content restrictions.
Service Areas: Stay Consistent for Better Targeting
- The Key to Targeting: Consistent service area information across platforms.
- What to Check:
- Ensure your service areas are the same (or very similar) on your LSA account and GMB profile.
- Your website should also have content that supports your service areas.
Why This Matters: Consistency helps Google accurately target your ads to the right customers in your service area.
Bottom Line: The service areas on the business profile and the LSA account should be the same or as close to the same as possible. This does not have to be exact but, if you are targeting Boston MA via the LSA account then your GMB/GBP listing should also have Boston MA as a target area. There should also be supporting content for the service areas on the business website.
These connections can help boost your ad placement in those areas.
Understanding Lead "Disputes"
- The Change: Google no longer has a "dispute lead" option; it's now a "Rate This Lead" system.
- How It Works: Google's AI determines charges/refunds based on the length of the phone call, what was discussed (they record every incoming call) and that is compared to your Google Profile, Reviews and mostly how much information you provide in the LSA dashboard.
What to Expect: It's not perfect, but many accounts do receive refunds. The more you update each and every lead the fewer bogus calls you will get and the quicker they will be weeded out by the algorithm. Keep bogus calls as short as possible to avoid being charged for the call.
Rate Your Leads: Help Google Improve
- Your Role: Use the "Rate This Lead" system to provide feedback on lead quality. The more accurate information you provide back to Google in a feedback loop the better the entire system works.
- Why This Is Important: Your ratings help Google's AI learn what a good lead is for your business, improving future lead accuracy and budget use.
What to Expect: We understand the frustration of the LSA platform. That is why One Click SEO is working on building an interface that simplifies updating leads in Google’s system.
Bottom Line: With the removal of the disputing option advertisers are left with the rating system. It is rather simple but it does help Google to further understand what they should be charging for and what not to charge for when it comes to leads. It is super important to keep up with this process to make sure you are getting the most out of your budget.
One Click SEO: Your Partner in LSA Success
By following these steps, you'll optimize your LSA campaigns for better results. We're here to guide you every step of the way. If you have any questions or need assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.
