Add a Google Places key to find leads
Use your own Google Cloud key so Houscade can search Google Places for prospective clients and contractors in your city.
When you are done
The lead finder can search Google Places on your account.
Everything below gets pasted into Settings → Google Places key. Takes about 10 minutes, once.
Before you start
- A Google account.
- A Google Cloud project with billing enabled. Places has a free monthly allowance, but Google will not issue a working key without a billing account attached.
Steps
Open the Google Cloud Console and select or create a project.
One project for your studio is enough. The name is only for you.
Enable the Places API for that project.
APIs & Services → Library → search 'Places API' → Enable. Enabling it is separate from creating the key, and forgetting this step is the usual cause of a key that looks valid and returns nothing.
Go to APIs & Services → Credentials → Create credentials → API key.
The key starts with AIza and is about 39 characters.
Restrict the key to the Places API.
Edit the key → API restrictions → Restrict key → Places API. An unrestricted key that leaks can be spent by anyone, and Google will email you about it.
Paste it into Settings → Google Places key and save.
Stored encrypted. Searches then run against your Google account and your allowance.
If it does not work
- The key saves but every search returns nothing.
- The Places API is not enabled on that project, or billing is not attached. Both are silent — Google returns an empty result rather than an error you can see.
- Searches stop partway through a month.
- The free allowance is used up. Google Cloud shows the usage; there is no daily cap on Places, so a runaway search can spend real money — set a budget alert on the project.