All provider listings in Local Services are displayed and ranked based on an auction, where the highest ranked ads show first. The auction is the process Local Services Ads uses to order profiles for a given search, taking into account bid and overall profile quality. Factors in the auction include:
- Your verification status and whether or not you obtained a Google badge of trust, like Google Screened or Google Guaranteed: Providers with these badges will rank above those without them.
- Your bid: The amount that you bid is the maximum amount that you're willing to pay for a lead, though you may end up paying less.
- We recommend setting your bid mode to 'Maximise Leads', which lets Google set your bid to get the most leads for your budget. Providers with equivalent quality and budgets who use 'Maximise leads' typically get more leads than those who don’t. Learn How bidding works for Local Services Ads.
- How likely your ad is to result in a lead, which is based on a number of factors, including:
- Your responsiveness to customer enquiries and requests: Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness. Learn how to Receive and respond to leads.
- What a customer is searching for:
- The context of a customer’s search, for example, the service or job that a customer is searching for, time of the search, location and other characteristics.
- How relevant your business is for the customer's search, for example, services that you provide and your business bio.
- Enabling message and/or booking leads means that there are more ways for customers to reach you, which can increase the likelihood of receiving a lead, especially during nights and weekends when you can’t answer the phone, or when consumers want to reach out to you but don't expect to hear back immediately.
- Profile quality: Your rating, number of reviews, average response time and any other information about your business that may influence user preferences factor into profile quality. Higher quality profiles may rank higher and may also pay lower costs per lead.
Additionally, ads ranking optimises for the overall health and diversity of the Local Services Ads ecosystem, and provides sufficient opportunity for all providers. We’re always running experiments to try and provide the best experience for users.
Note: If your business has multiple locations that serve the same geographic area, Local Services will show only the highest ranking ad in response to a user’s query.
