Question about Local Service Ads

[rutkap]

Google Service listing question...

One of my clients now has a local service ad showing up on one of their primary searches. He obviously wants to be listed here. Clearly after looking at some of the competiors listed, this is not a complete or representative list, nor are the a list of people paying (looks like just 1 competitor is) Here are my questions:

1. Can you get listed here without having to pay for the service area ads?
2. If you are running adwords, can this come out of our normal budget or will we have to split between adwords and local service ads?
3. Is there anything that you can do to get your listing "ranked" here. Clearly STL Pest Control is ranking better than the other non-paying customers.

 

[TomW]

1. Yes, you can request to be added to the free listings of the Local Services unit by contacting: localservices-help@google.com (more info here)

2. Budget for LSA is independent of AdWords

3. STL Pest Control is a paid advertiser but they have their ad paused. They should not have two listings present. Sloppiness on LSA team's part. They likely had a free listing to begin with and then when they joined as an advertiser Google created a new listing, leaving them with a paid listing and a free listing.

The best way to rank better than other non-paying customers is to sign up for LSA then pause your ad. You won't be charged for leads and your position will typically be better than businesses that have not signed up. Plus, you would then be able to enable your ad as needed if business is slow.

 

[rutkap]

Is there a way for an agency like myself to set up my client with a local service area ad? Looks like this will have to be something initiated by the client? I would hate to have our PPC resources redirected here but it seems like that might be something that would happen.