Are Home Service Ads the death of home-based businesses on Google?
Google is expanding their Home Service Ads across more and more cities in the US, and some home-based business owners are worried. Columnist Joy Hawkins explains how this move impacts these businesses and what they can do to combat a loss of local search visibility.

If you are a local business that provides home services in the United States, you should be bracing yourself for what will happen when Home Service Ads roll out in your industry and market. The changes are vast and make a huge difference in who ranks in the local results on Google. When they first started expanding them last year in San Diego, it wiped out 89 percent of the listings in the local results.
There is no warning
Unlike other features, Google isn’t preannouncing where they plan on rolling these out. Currently, there isn’t even an updated help article. Google’s signup page is also inaccurate, as it only lists cities in California, even though they rolled out to Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix and Seattle weeks ago.
[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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