Google tied Local Services Ads to your Business Profile. What that changes for a roofer.
Local Services Ads now pull rating and reviews from your Google Business Profile. Why that turns the review count into part of the cost of the ad.
If you run Local Services Ads, the "Google Guaranteed" badge ads at the very top of a roofing search, your review count just became part of your ad cost. Google now requires every Local Services account to be connected to a Google Business Profile, and the rating and reviews that show on the ad come from that profile rather than from a separate review system inside the ad platform.
That sounds like a plumbing change. It is not. It removes the last place where a roofer with a thin profile could still buy his way to the top of the page.
What actually changed
For years Local Services Ads had their own review flow. Google sent a review request from inside the ad account after a job, and those reviews lived on the ad, separate from the ones on your map listing. A company could have a strong LSA card and a weak map listing, or the other way around.
Google has folded the two together. Your LSA rating is your profile rating. Your LSA review count is your profile review count. Reviews written to the old LSA-only system that never reached the profile no longer help the ad. Google's own explanation is on its Local Services help pages, and the wording has shifted more than once, so check it before you plan around it.
Two things follow. First, the ranking model for these ads has always weighed review count, rating, responsiveness and hours, and now it is weighing the same number a homeowner sees when she taps through to the map. Second, the map listing is doing double duty, so everything that was wrong with it is now wrong with your ads too.
Why it hits roofing harder than most trades
Look at the field. Across 102,385 roofing listings in our data, the median company has 13 reviews and 44.2% have fewer than 10. Only 14.1% have crossed 100.
Local Services Ads show a handful of companies at a time. In a metro with a couple hundred roofers running them, the ones shown are chosen partly on that number, and the homeowner then chooses among them partly on that number. A roofer at the median is competing for a slot against a company at 141, which is where the top tenth of the market sits. Before the change, a small company could offset that with a good LSA-only history. Now there is one scoreboard.
The rating side matters too. 9.1% of roofing listings sit under four stars. Under this system, a low profile rating does not just hurt the map. It sits on the ad you are paying for, and Google lists rating among the factors that decide how often the ad shows.
What to do about it this month
Reconnect and verify. Open the Local Services account and confirm it is linked to the right profile. Companies with an old duplicate listing sometimes get connected to the wrong one, and the ad then shows a rating from a profile with four reviews on it.
Move the review ask to the profile link, permanently. If your crew was sending the LSA review request from the ad dashboard, stop. Every ask now goes to the profile's short review link, sent by text while the crew lead is still in the driveway. The exact words and the timing are in the reviews guide. Two a week from a company doing a dozen roofs a month is realistic, and it compounds.
Answer the ones you have. Reply rate and response time show on the profile, and LSA has always punished slow responses to leads. Reply to every review, including the old ones, and set the lead-response habit to minutes, not hours. The missed calls guide covers what a slow response costs.
Fix the profile like it is an ad, because it is. Hours listed, including Saturday if you actually answer. 27.2% of roofing listings show no hours at all, and a blank hours field reads as closed to both the ranking system and the homeowner. Services filled in by name: storm damage inspection, asphalt shingle replacement, metal roofing, repair, gutters. Photos of finished roofs with the town in the caption. The full checklist is in the Google profile guide.
Rebudget with the ranking in mind. LSA charges per lead, not per click, so the money you spend is not what ranks you. If you are stuck at the bottom of the rotation with a weak profile, raising the budget mostly buys more of nothing. Spend the next 60 days on reviews and profile completeness and then turn the budget back up. How LSA fits beside a search campaign is in the Google Ads guide.
The larger point
Google keeps collapsing its local products into the Business Profile. Profile messaging went away. The free profile website builder went away. Now the separate review system is gone. Every one of these moves makes the profile more central and the review count more expensive to ignore. See where yours sits against the market on the benchmarks page, then work the list above.
If you want the review system and profile cleanup done for you first, the free 14-day trial covers any service, no card, text or call.