For plumbers, electricians, locksmiths and other trades who need the phone ringing sooner than local SEO can manage. We run Google search ads for the jobs you want and the area you cover, and they can be set to show only in the hours you pick up. The ads are quoted after a free analysis; local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results, with nothing upfront.
110 to 173monthly calls from the Google Business Profile, a 57% rise
“My business is doing very, very well. I wasn’t expecting this in this short period.”
Ash, Norwich Tyres & Auto ServicesTyres and servicing, Norwich
May to August 2026. Source: Google Business Profile.
Read the full storySo nothing below is proof of our ads work. These are results of the local SEO and Google profile work we do for trades, measured by Google from the first month we tracked to the best month since, using Google's complete monthly data. Norwich Tyres is useful context. Six months after opening, Ash had already spent money with two firms on Google and Facebook ads, and drivers a mile away still couldn't find his garage.
+159%
more views of the Google profile in search, and calls up from 38 to 60 a month
“I’m so busy I can’t do it anymore myself.”
Hiwad, Rescue TyresMobile tyre fitting, north-west London
June to August 2026. Source: Google Business Profile.
Read the full story+123%
more clicks from Google search
“Before, I struggled to find customers.”
George, GS RenovationRSJ and renovations, London
July to September 2026. Source: Google Search Console.
Read the full storyThese figures come from local SEO and profile work, not from ads. Google only counts a call when someone taps the listing's call button, so numbers dialled by hand don't show up. Because each figure has its own peak month, the windows differ.
Search ads: the sponsored results Google shows when someone near you searches for work you want more of. We set up the campaigns, write the ads, keep the budget off searches that never become work, and report on what came in.
The account stays yours, and so does the budget. You pay Google for the clicks yourself, separately from our fee, unless we agree otherwise (our terms). If you leave, we stop all activity in the account and remove our access when you ask. And since each area gets just one business per trade from us, we are never running a rival's ads against yours.
Exactly what goes into the account is set in the plan that follows the free analysis. A trade account usually needs these:
When you need calls this week, when you are new and missing from the map, or when a seasonal rush is bigger than your listing can catch. Local SEO is the slower route, and nobody can put a date on it. A search ad can be running within days, because Google says it reviews most ads within one working day (Google Ads Help).
In your first months there are no reviews to show, and Google has no history for your listing. Ads can win the first jobs while the listing earns its place, and every finished job is a review you can ask for.
Seasonal work can be bought for the busy weeks only. In Google Ads data, UK searches for 'landscapers near me' ran at 9,900 in March and April 2026, against 1,900 in December 2025. 'Boiler repair near me' peaked at 14,800 in October 2025 and sat at 2,900 through the summer of 2026 (Keyword Planner).
Ads are the wrong buy when the diary is full, when nobody can answer during the day, or when one job's profit is smaller than the cost of the clicks behind it. Google bills the click whether or not you pick up, and on a roof you often can't. Ads also go quiet the moment the budget runs out, while a listing that ranks keeps taking calls. Our comparison of local SEO against paid ads sets out when each one pays.
They are separate Google products, and a trade can run either or both. Local Services Ads (LSAs) charge per lead and appear in their own panel, with a Google Verified badge for firms that pass Google's checks. Search ads bill for every click, even one that never rings, run on the searches you choose, and are open to every trade.
Google lists Checkatrade as a Local Services partner affiliate for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. A firm that comes in through a partner shows a 'from' label and the partner's logo on its profile, and its leads arrive through the partner's platform, not Google's (Google). So some names in that panel may be Checkatrade members. Our Checkatrade alternatives guide sets out how each platform charges.
Google is also folding LSAs into Google Ads as a kind of Performance Max campaign, with UK accounts due to move in 2027 (Google Ads Help). Search ads are what this page is about. If your trade is on Google's list, ask in the free analysis whether an LSA trial is worth running alongside them.
You pay for each lead, such as a call from the ad, and tick job types like 'install shower' instead of choosing keywords (Google). Plumbers, electricians, roofers, heating engineers, cleaners, tree surgeons, pest controllers and removals firms are on the UK list. Painters and decorators and locksmiths are not (Google).
To earn the badge you need public liability insurance, a business check, any licence the law requires and a verified Google Business Profile. Google puts the average at three to four weeks from sending your documents (Google). After that, regularly missing calls can hurt where you appear (Google).
Google doesn't offer lead credits to advertisers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and that includes the UK (Google). A caller after a job you don't do can still be a charged lead.
Anything from about £3 to about £29, and the more urgent the job, the more it costs. The figures below are average UK costs per click in Google Ads data, pulled on 20 October 2026 and turned into pounds using the Bank of England rate for 19 October, 1.3318 dollars to the pound.
Someone locked out at midnight tends to ring the first name that looks capable, so advertisers pay more to be that name. Adding 'emergency' to 'plumber near me' takes a click from about £6 to about £16, and an electrician's doubles, from about £5 to about £10. That can still pay if you answer at 2am and the callout carries the margin. It rarely pays for a job you would price the same on a Tuesday afternoon.
Not every click rings, and not every call becomes a job, so one job costs several clicks. The bid should follow the profit on that job, not a round daily budget. At these prices, £10 a day buys less than one 'emergency plumber near me' click and about three for 'tree surgeon near me'. Google also adds a 2% UK Digital Services Tax fee to the bill (Google Ads Help).
On searches that contain your trade's words but will never be a paid job: people fixing it themselves, people training for the trade, and people buying a product. Google's default keyword setting, broad match, lets an ad appear on any search Google judges related to your keyword, even one that means something else (Google Ads Help). Card figures are average UK searches a month, October 2025 through September 2026, in Google Ads data.
Negative keywords (words that stop your ad showing) block much of this before launch. They need care: Google says they don't match close variants, so 'course' doesn't block 'courses' unless both are on the list (Google Ads Help). After launch, the search terms report shows what people actually typed before your ad appeared, though Google leaves out low-volume searches for privacy (Google Ads Help).
'How to bleed a radiator' averages 27,100 searches a month and reached 74,000 in November 2025. 'How to unblock a toilet' gets 18,100 a month. Both share words with what heating engineers and plumbers bid on, and the person typing them plans to do the job themselves.
'Electrician apprenticeship' averages 14,800 searches a month, 'plumbing apprenticeship' 9,900 and 'electrician course' 8,100. These people want training or a wage. None of them needs a callout.
'Rat poison' draws 18,100 searches a month and 'toilet plunger' 14,800. Pest controllers and drain engineers share that vocabulary with people buying the fix off a shelf.
Search partners, the other sites that carry Google's ads, are switched on by default in a new Search campaign. Google doesn't tell you which partner sites showed your ad (Google Ads Help). On a local budget, starting with them switched off is the safer test.
As far as you will actually drive, and only while someone can answer. Google's default location setting, 'Presence or interest', also reaches people who have only shown interest in your area. That interest can come from the words they search, a recent visit, or pages they read about the place (Google Ads Help). For callouts, 'Presence' is the tighter choice: people in, or regularly in, the area you set.
Radius targeting starts at one kilometre, and Google warns that a very small area may show your ads only now and then, or not at all (Google Ads Help). So the area should follow the postcodes you really cover, with a tighter circle for urgent work than for planned work, because an hour's drive eats the margin on a lock change.
Campaigns show 'All day' unless you change them (Google Ads Help). The number on your ad can be set to appear only when you can take calls (Google Ads Help), so a sole trader on a roof all afternoon isn't paying for calls that ring out.
By counting calls and jobs rather than clicks. Google Ads can count calls from the ad itself. With call reporting on, it puts a Google forwarding number on the ad and records each call's start time, length and whether it connected (Google Ads Help). Google counts a call as a conversion only if it lasts as long as the minimum you choose (Google Ads Help).
If someone reaches your website from the ad and taps your number there, Google can count the tap but not the call. And the forwarding number belongs to Google, which can reassign it. Keep it in the ads only, off the van, the business cards and your Google Business Profile.
The other half of the picture is your job book: note on each new job where the customer found you, and after a month you can see which ads paid for themselves. Calls from your Google profile are a separate count, and our call tracking guide explains how to read them.
Websites, ads and social media are quoted separately after the free analysis. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results. There is nothing to pay upfront: you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met.
Tell us your trade and area. We record a short video of where you rank, who is above you and what it would take. It's yours to keep.
If ads would waste your money, we say so. If they fit, you get a quote and a plan for which jobs to advertise and where.
Search ads built around the jobs you want, in the areas you cover, with the searches that never turn into work kept out.
Reports on what the spend brought in: clicks, cost and the calls Google can count. Stop whenever you like.
There are two bills. Google charges for the clicks at whatever the auction sets, plus a 2% UK fee, and you normally pay that budget to Google directly. At the average prices on this page, that runs from about £3 a click for a tree surgeon to about £29 for 'emergency locksmith'. Our fee for running the ads is separate. We don't publish it, because it turns on your trade, where you work and who you're up against, so you get the figure after the free analysis.
No. Google charges for every click whatever happens next, so the ads are priced separately once the free analysis is done. Local SEO and Google Business Profile work is paid on results: there is nothing to pay upfront, and you pay nothing until the results we agree with you in writing, before we start, have been met. How pay on results works.
No. Google has replaced it with a single Google Verified badge on Local Services Ads, and has ended the money-back guarantee tied to the old badge. Claims under that guarantee only cover jobs booked before 7 December 2025 (Google). If someone is still selling you 'Google Guaranteed', their information is out of date.
Not any more. Google removed the option to create new call ads in February 2026, and existing ones stop showing in February 2027 (Google Ads Help). The number belongs on an ordinary search ad instead, as a call asset. A tap on it costs the same as a click on the headline (Google Ads Help).
No. Google's help page on local results says a better ranking there can't be paid for or requested (Google). Ads buy a sponsored spot for as long as you pay. The free map listing is earned through the profile, the reviews and the website, which is the Google Maps SEO and Google Business Profile work we do on pay on results.
Not in your area. While you are a client, we won't take on a direct competitor in your trade and your agreed service area (our terms). With ads it matters twice over, because an agency running two plumbers in one town is bidding against itself in the same auction.
Yes. A paused campaign stops its ads showing, so it stops spending (Google Ads Help). Our own service can be paused for one to three months from your client portal, and billing and our work stop with it. You can cancel at any time as well; the service runs to the end of the period you've already paid for, and you aren't charged again (our terms).
Yes. You give us access to your Google Ads account, and the account stays yours. The search terms report is the place to start: it lists what people actually typed before your ads showed, so it shows where the money has been going.
Usually. A sound site can carry ads whoever built it, us or someone else. Each ad should open a page about that job, with your number near the top. If a page is missing or the site is holding the ads back, that's a separate quote, and websites for tradesmen covers it.
Send us your trade and where you work. The free analysis video shows where you rank now and who is above you. From it we tell you whether ads, local SEO or both make sense, and quote the ads if they do. If the clicks in your area cost more than your jobs can carry, we will say that instead.