The green checkmark sits above everything else on the page. Getting it takes paperwork most of your competitors will not bother with.
TL;DR Background check, licence and insurance verification, then you appear above the map pack with a badge Google stands behind. Ranking is driven heavily by responsiveness and reviews. Dispute your junk leads weekly or you overpay.
What the badge actually means
Google Guaranteed applies to home services. Google backs the job up to a coverage limit if a customer is unsatisfied and Google agrees. That backing is why the badge carries weight with consumers.
Google Screened applies to professional services such as legal, financial and real estate. Same verification process, no money-back guarantee.
Either way, the visual effect is the same: a green check next to your name in the position everyone looks at first.
Getting verified
The barrier is the moat. Most of your competitors will not complete it.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Business licence | Current, matching your legal name |
| Insurance | General liability, minimum varies by category and state |
| Background check | Business-level, plus owner and often field staff |
| Google Business Profile | Claimed, verified, and consistent |
| Category eligibility | Not every trade qualifies. Check first |
Timeline: two to six weeks, mostly waiting on background checks. Start it before you need it.
The most common failure. Name mismatches. Your licence, your insurance certificate, your Google Business Profile and your LSA application must all show the identical legal business name. Any variation stalls the application.
How LSA ranking actually works
It is not a straight auction. Position is influenced by:
- Review count and rating on your LSA profile specifically. These are separate from your Google Business Profile reviews and they matter here.
- Responsiveness. How fast you answer, and how often you miss calls. This is weighted heavily.
- Proximity to the searcher.
- Business hours and whether you are open now.
- Complaint history.
- Budget, which affects how often you show, not just position.
Responsiveness is the lever most businesses ignore. Missing calls actively demotes you. If you cannot answer reliably during your ad hours, fix that before increasing budget.
Reviews on LSA are their own system
You have to request them through the LSA dashboard, and only customers Google can match to a lead can leave one.
How to build them
- Request through the LSA dashboard after every job that came through LSA.
- Ask the same day, while they are pleased.
- Reply to every one.
- Understand the split. Your Google Business Profile reviews do not transfer to LSA. You are building two review bases.
Dispute your bad leads, every week
You pay per lead, and not every lead is legitimate.
Disputable
- Wrong number or a misdial.
- Spam and sales calls.
- A service you do not offer.
- An area outside your set service zone.
- A job type outside your listed categories.
- Calls where nobody spoke.
How. In the LSA dashboard, open the lead, mark it as invalid, choose the reason, submit. Credits appear within days.
Do this weekly. Businesses that never dispute overpay by a meaningful margin. It takes ten minutes and it is the single highest-return admin task in the whole channel.
Do not dispute genuine leads that did not close. Abuse gets flagged and you lose credibility on future claims.
Converting the calls
The badge gets you the call. Nothing about it closes the job.
- Answer within three rings. Position depends on it and so does the customer.
- Answer with your business name and a person’s name.
- Confirm the town first, so you can dispute immediately if it is out of area.
- Give a real window and a real range.
- Book on the call. Do not offer to “get back to them.”
Set up a specific answering routine for LSA hours. These calls cost you money the moment they connect.
Budget mechanics
You set a weekly budget. Google spends it acquiring leads at a category rate that varies by market.
- Start conservatively and watch cost per booked job, not cost per lead.
- Pause when your calendar is full. Paying for work you cannot deliver produces bad reviews, which then hurt your LSA ranking.
- Adjust seasonally. Raise before your busy period, lower after.
- Watch the trend after disputes. Your effective cost is the post-credit number, not the headline.
LSA alongside organic
They are not competing budgets. They occupy different positions and different time horizons.
- LSA delivers now. Organic compounds.
- Occupying both crowds out competitors from the two most valuable positions on the page.
- Use LSA in towns you cannot rank in organically, where distance works against you.
- Let organic do the work close to home.
The honest test. Turn LSA off for two weeks and compare total booked jobs, not leads. If total barely moves, you were paying for work you already had.
Start the verification paperwork this week even if you are not ready to spend. It takes weeks to clear and it costs nothing to have approved and paused.
Need a pro to manage it? [BOOK A CALL]