It looks like Google wants to take on another industry. They’ve done it before with the travel and insurance industries. Now they are setting their eyes on the home services business, currently dominated by companies like Angie’s List, Yelp and Houzz.
As a Google AdWords Partner, we have been invited to participate in the roll out of the “Home Services” program on Nov. 19. How this test rollout ends up being implemented may change, but this is what we have found as of today, it may not be the same if you try the search yourself as it is in a test period.
Search for the term “Plumbers in San Francisco”. This is what I saw:
The top three listings are sponsored ads, but you can only tell by the grey “Sponsored” on the top of the ad block. Next, click on either “Qualified plumbers serving San Francisco” or “More plumbers” to see this:
You’ll see a list of nine plumbers. I have checked off three of them which then populated the ” Send request to 1-3 plumbers” on the top right. You can then fill out the form and the three of them will get your request. If you click on a plumbers listing on the left, you will get details about them:
As you can see, the plumber can highlight their service area, areas of expertise and more as part of this program. According to Google “All businesses shown in home service ads must require each of their in-home workers to undergo background checks by Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations, Inc., a third-party risk management and security company.”
You can learn more at the Google support page for their home service ads.
