Local Services Ads for solar companies

Local Services Ads sit at the very top of the results, above both the paid search ads and the map pack, with a verification badge. For a local trade they are usually the best-value paid placement available, and plenty of solar companies never set them up because the verification looks like paperwork.

How do they differ from ordinary search ads?

The row that changes the economics is the first. You are not paying for research traffic, misclicks or people who bounce. You pay when somebody contacts you, which removes most of the waste that makes search expensive.

Verification, which is the actual barrier

1. 01

   Business and licence checks

   Your trade licence, in the right categories, current. Most solar companies have this in order and it is worth checking the exact categories before applying.

2. 02

   Insurance

   Liability cover at or above the required level, with a certificate. The most common delay is a certificate not naming the entity exactly as registered.

3. 03

   Background checks

   On the business and, in some markets, on owners or field staff. Handled by a third party and the part that takes the longest.

4. 04

   Reviews connected

   Your Google reviews feed the ranking directly, so profile work done earlier pays off here immediately. See how to get more reviews for solar installers.

How does ranking work?

Proximity, review score and review count behave much as they do in the map pack. The factor that surprises people is responsiveness: how quickly and how consistently you answer the leads the platform sends you is explicitly part of how often it sends more.

• Answer the phone. Missed LSA calls are counted against you, directly.
• Reply to messages quickly, within minutes rather than hours.
• Keep your hours accurate. Showing open and not answering is the worst combination available.
• Do not decline jobs repeatedly, or the platform sends fewer of them.
• Keep review flow steady, because it feeds ranking here as well as in the map pack.

In other words, the same speed-to-lead discipline that raises conversion everywhere else also lowers your cost here by raising how often you appear. See speed to lead for solar companies.

How do you dispute a bad lead?

You can request credit for leads that are outside your service area, for a job type you do not offer, spam, or a customer who never engaged at all. Most installers never bother, which is a standing discount left unclaimed.

1. 01Make it somebody's weekly task, not something done when remembered.
2. 02Dispute promptly. There are time limits and they are not generous.
3. 03Be accurate. Disputing genuine leads that simply did not convert is both wrong and counterproductive.
4. 04Track the credit rate. If a large share of leads are disputable, your job types or service area are set wrongly.

Running them alongside search

They are complements rather than alternatives. LSAs capture the people who want to call somebody verified right now; search captures the people researching, comparing and looking for specifics like battery storage or a particular brand.

For most solar companies the sensible order is LSAs first, because the cost per lead is lower and the setup is a one-off, then search on top for the terms LSAs cannot reach. See Google Ads for solar companies and solar Google Ads cost per lead.

One last point about the badge itself. The verification mark beside your name is doing work that your website cannot: it is a third party saying you are licensed and insured, shown at the exact moment somebody is deciding who to let onto their roof. For a trust purchase like solar, that placement is worth more than the position alone suggests.