Google Ads vs SEO for a contractor in Quebec: which should you choose?

With Google Ads, you choose the searches your ad can show up for (“paving Boucherville”, “plumber Longueuil”), set a daily budget and limit the ads to the towns you serve. You pay when someone clicks. According to Google, most ads are reviewed within one business day, so a well-built campaign can bring in calls in its first week. When you stop paying, the ads disappear.

SEO is the work that helps your website and your Google profile rank in the organic results and on the map, with no cost per click: a clear page for each service, a site that loads fast on a phone, reviews, structured data. The effect builds up, but slowly. Google itself warns that it typically takes four months to a year from the first changes until you start to see the benefits.

Published estimates vary a lot depending on the method. QliqQliq, a Toronto agency, analyzed more than 100,000 Canadian keywords pulled from Google's Keyword Planner in March and April 2026. Using the high range of the top-of-page bid estimate, it found an average of $16.05 per click for home service trades, $11.05 for home renovation, $10.53 for outdoor home services such as landscaping and $7.62 for cleaning and pest control.

A Quebec agency gives lower figures. Balgio puts home services (plumbing, electrical, landscaping) at $2 to $6 per click and construction and renovation at $3 to $7, and adds that the regions often cost less than Montréal or Quebec City. Part of the gap comes from the method: QliqQliq measures the high end of the estimated bid, not the average price advertisers actually pay.

On top of the clicks come management fees if someone runs the campaign for you. Balgio suggests an ad budget of $1,000 to $2,000 a month for most service businesses and puts agency management at $500–$1,500 a month. Before you set a budget, check the price of your own keywords, in your own towns, in Keyword Planner.

Local Services Ads are billed differently: you pay for each valid lead (a call, a message or a booking) rather than for each click. Google offers them in Canada for certain categories only. Its Canadian help page lists, among others, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, roofers, cleaning services, carpet cleaning, lawn care, tree services, junk removal, pest control, movers, locksmiths, water damage, appliance repair and window cleaning.

Paving, landscaping in the broader sense and general renovation were not on that Canadian list in October 2026. The page doesn't promise that every category runs in every town either: Google asks you to check eligibility for your area. Run that check with your own address before you build a plan around these ads.

If your trade qualifies, allow some time. Google screens the business (registration, insurance, licences depending on the trade) and, in some cases, runs background checks on the people who work in customers' homes. According to its help page, screening takes three to four weeks on average after you submit your documents. These ads are manageable without an agency: if your trade qualifies and all you want is calls, you may not need us.

SEO is paid for mostly in time, yours or a professional's. DevActif estimates an SEO mandate for a local small business, with a few services in a single region, at $750 to $1,500 a month, and ongoing local SEO work (Google profile, reviews, local pages, follow-up) at $750 to $2,500 a month. The agency says these are ballpark figures, not its own rates.

You also need a website that holds up: one page per service, one page per area you serve where you genuinely have customers, photos of real jobs, a short quote form and fast loading on a phone. At Kollowo, a website costs $1,000 to $2,000: the lower end for a basic site, the higher end for a bilingual site with more pages or features. The details are on our pricing page.

With the four-months-to-a-year delay Google mentions, a “paving Saint-Hubert” page published in April will probably come too late for the current season. Once it ranks, though, it can bring in requests for several seasons without you paying for each visit.

The Google Business Profile is free, and it's what shows up in Google Maps and in the local results block. A contractor who works at customers' homes can hide the address and show a service area instead. According to Google, local ranking is based on three factors: relevance (does the profile match the search?), distance and prominence, which the number of reviews and the rating feed into. Google also says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking.

In our view, a complete profile linked to a clear website gives the best return for the least money: the right primary category, your services, the area you really cover, photos of your jobs and a reply to every review. It does have limits, though: if you need calls this week, or if you still have few reviews next to established competitors, the profile won't be enough on its own.

In paving, landscaping, hedge trimming or window cleaning, demand is packed into a few months and picks up again in spring, when people see their driveway and yard after the winter. You can't switch SEO on in April, while a campaign can start within days.

Over several years, the balance shifts. As your pages and profile climb for your main searches, you can cut back the ads on those searches and move that budget to the services or towns where you're still missing. Ads stay useful for the start of a season or a new service. Within a single year, the calendar can look like this:

• Fall and winter: update your Google profile, add photos from last season, ask this year's customers for a review and publish your service and area pages. They'll have several months to get indexed before spring.
• Late winter and spring: start or increase your Google Ads campaign on your main services, limited to the towns you serve, before your competitors' calendars fill up.
• Summer: once your calendar is full, lower the budget or pause the campaign. Paying for calls you can't take earns you nothing.
• End of season: note which keywords brought in real contracts and which pages already get organic visits. Those searches become next year's SEO targets.

For a contractor, a result is a phone call or a quote request. Google Ads can count calls as conversions using a Google forwarding number, shown in the ad or swapped in for your number on your website for visitors who came from an ad. You set the minimum call length for a call to count. Form leads are measured with a thank-you page or confirmation message.

Cost per lead is what you spent divided by the number of calls and requests you got. Go one step further and note how many of those leads became contracts, and for how much. The same cost per click can pay off for an interlocking paver driveway and be too high for a window cleaning job, because the contracts aren't worth the same.

A well-designed form makes this tracking easier. For Le Cèdre Urbain, a hedge trimming company in Boucherville, we built the site around a quote form that collects the address, property type, services and preferred timing, so the team can price each request without calling the customer back.

For SEO, your Google profile shows the number of calls and website clicks, and Google Search Console shows which searches bring visitors to your site. Also ask every new customer how they found you. “On Google” can mean an ad, the map or an organic result, so ask which one.

In every case, start with a fast website and a complete Google profile. Then:

• New business with few or no reviews: Google Ads, or Local Services Ads if your trade qualifies, to get calls in your first season while you build up your profile, reviews and service pages.
• Established business with plenty of reviews: put your effort into local SEO, which benefits from your reputation, and keep a small campaign for the services or towns where you don't show up yet.
• Seasonal trade (paving, landscaping, hedges, windows): prepare your SEO in fall and winter, and concentrate your ads on the start of the season, with a budget you cut once the calendar is full.
• Emergency work (plumbing, water damage): Local Services Ads or Google Ads, because the customer needs someone right away. Local SEO then helps you get chosen without paying for every call.
• Tight budget: your Google profile, reviews and a simple website first. If you add ads, keep them to a few specific searches in your main area and measure the cost per lead before spending more.
• Calendar full all year: you probably don't need ads. Keep your profile and website up to date and hold on to the budget.