Local SEO For The Home Service Industry Is Doomed!

[bajaseo]

It appears Google has partnered with Home Advisor so they can make even more money. This means now when people search for local contractors only Home Advisor approved listings will show first. This is horrible and is not fair to all the business owners. Of course Google doesn't care about the little guys, they just want more $. If this merger doesn't kill almost all home service contractor's business then Google Home Service Ads will. Anyone else have anymore info on this. How will this work?

Here are some links that I found online:

https://www.google.com/adwords/express/home-service-ads/

Google gets deeper into home services

Google Testing Sponsored Home Services Marketplace Snak Paks | Understanding Google My Business & Local Search

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<meta property="og:image" content="http://marketing-blog.catalystemarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/ProsDiscussion.jpg">

 

[Linda Buquet]

And Mike's latest from just yesterday:

Google Partnering with HomeAdvisor to Add Services Booking to Local

This appears to be a new ad format although as of yet there are no details what it costs and where the payment is made. It is not clear if the process is completely driven by HomeAdvisor or if the business needs to interact with Google directly. It is also not clear what happens if the selected business is not immediately responsive. Does the request go to the next plumber in HomeAdvisor’s queue.

In response to Mike's comment above...My strong guess, but only a guess, is that it's just paid placement or commission based. Very similar to whatever deal Google has with hotel booking engines for example.

The relationship is between the contractor and HomeAdvisor. Everything is handled, controlled by HomeAdvisor. HA just pays either per placement or per click or by some type of commission arrangement to get listed on Google and feeds everything to Google via API or whatever.

Google wins and makes a little extra $. HA wins and closes more deals because it can say we have a special arrangement with Google and now our listings are featured and customers can book right from Google. Contractors may win, by getting more leads/sales?

The small businesses that are not with HA could suffer. But that depends on main SERPs display which we have not seen yet. And we don't yet know if there will still be a regular free 3 pack in addition to these listings. All that screenshot shows is the booking engine right in the Knowledge Graph, which someone would only see AFTER they already selected and clicked a listing. We don't know how they got to that listing or what the main SERPs display looks like. I assume they will look similar to the HSAs in San Francisco.

 

[Linda Buquet]

See related discussions here:

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local-important/36294-official-launch-google-home-service-ads-some-observations.html">Official Launch: Google Home Service Ads - Some Observations</a>

<a href="http://www.localsearchforum.com/google-local/38242-google-home-service-ads.html">Google Home Service Ads</a>

 

[bajaseo]

I think the 3 pack will not be free anymore as they will control it like the Home Service Ad service they offer. But now they partnered with Home Advisor so this is a double whammy. The leads will go to the highest bidders which is very bad. This will not only ruin contractors but also Seo providers like me. This is the beginning of something bad, we all might have to start looking for a different job as local seo will definitely be dead soon.

 

[CodyBaird]

@mike Ramsey click through study posted yesterday is very revealing showing as many as 30% of the clicks going to ads (which do not look like ads on mobile) for the average searcher.

http://niftymarketing.com/5-new-local-pack-click-through-studies/

Local pack seeing low 20 percentile of click through.

Organic seeing almost 50% of clicks.

My takeaways:
1. SMB'S and agencies need a paid budget and strategy to compete.
2. SMB'S and agencies need an organic budget and strategy to compete.
3. The days of having a clean nap profile to win in local are long behind us.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[deanPlumberseo]

It has happened, in the San Fran area the 3 pack is gone and now it's just a dox showing three companies. In this case Plumbers, search San Mateo Plumber and you will see the maps are gone and it's just Home Advisor. This is bad for Local SEO in the home services space.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Dean,

I'm just seeing the regular HSA ads same as before.

How can you tell these are HA? I don't doubt you, just wondering how you can tell?

 

[stankolev]

And something from yesterday :

Service Area Businesses aren't Places in the strictest sense, and are thus no longer being returned by the Places API ...

https://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=8900

They moved them to Google My Business API which is still closed for mass use ;(

 

[Shawn Morgan]

Laura and Dean these definitely look like HA ads to me.