Google has started testing Home Services Adverts within its SERP to promote local service providers. The Search giant confirmed a beta test for the program in the San Francisco Bay area. The program has features similar to those of other home service providers such as Yelp, Amazon Home Services and Angie’s list, but with major UX improvements.
The program runs via Google’s flagship Paid Program and will promote pre-qualified home services professionals, thus enabling users to requests service/quotes directly from the search ads.
Pete Meyers of Moz tweeted a screenshot of the test on Wednesday last week (29 July 2015).
New paid local entity in testing on Google last night (search for “plumbers”) – potential game-changer, IMO — pic.twitter.com/ehlLfs9MOw
— Dr. Pete Meyers (@dr_pete) July 29, 2015
Pete Meyers confirmed that he saw ads on some searches for “San Francisco plumber” and “San Francisco locksmith”.
Home Service Ads are ad units that connect home-service providers such as plumbers and electricians to searchers. This means that the electricians will get the lead directly from Google. Ginny Marvin at Search Engine Land posted a very comprehensive review of these Home Service Ads, and got more data from Google about this change.
Google provided this FAQs about these ad units and I believe this will change over time as Google learns what users want. We are living in interesting times.