How to set up Google Ads for a local business, step by step

Google Ads can put your business at the top of Google today, but it’s also one of the quickest ways I know to spend money for nothing. Most of the wasted budget I see comes from the same few mistakes. Ads showing in the wrong places, for the wrong searches, with nobody tracking which clicks turned into work. This resource sets up a Google Ads search campaign the way I’d do it for a local business, in eight steps, with those mistakes designed out from the start. Allow an hour or two, and don’t rush the first three steps.

What do you need before setting up Google Ads?

A website that’s ready for visitors, Google Analytics working and a budget you’re comfortable losing while you learn. That last one sounds blunt, but it’s honest. The first few weeks of any campaign are partly about finding out what works. Your landing pages matter just as much as the ads. If someone clicks an ad for boiler repairs and lands on a homepage that barely mentions boilers, you’ve paid for a visit that was never going to turn into a call. If Analytics isn’t set up yet, do that first with how to set up Google Analytics 4.

Step 1: how do you create a Google Ads account without a Smart campaign?

Switch to Expert mode as soon as you sign up. Go to Google Ads with your business Google account. Google steers new advertisers towards a Smart campaign, which hands most of the decisions to Google and gives you very little control over where your money goes. Look for the Switch to Expert Mode link, then choose to create an account without a campaign.

Set the billing country to the United Kingdom, the time zone to London and the currency to British Pound. Check these twice. Google won’t let you change the time zone or currency once the account is created, so a mistake here means starting a new account.

Step 2: why set up conversion tracking before your first ad?

Because without it you can’t tell which clicks brought in work, and neither can Google. Go to Goals, then Conversions, and add new conversion actions. The ones that matter for a local business are calls from your ads, taps on your phone number on your website and enquiry form sends. If you’ve already set those up as key events in Analytics, you can import them straight across instead.

Do this before anything goes live. Every click you pay for without tracking is a click you can’t learn from. It’s also what Google’s bidding uses later to work out which searches are worth paying more for, so the sooner it’s collecting data, the better your campaign gets.

Step 3: which campaign type should a local business use?

Search. Click Create, then Campaign, choose Leads as your objective and Search as the campaign type. Search ads only show when someone types a search, which means they’re already looking for what you do. That’s the best place for a local business to start.

Then, in the campaign settings, untick Search Partners and untick the Display Network. Both are switched on by default, and both spread your budget onto other websites and apps where the clicks are cheaper but rarely as good. You can always test them later once the main campaign is working. Leave Performance Max alone for now too. It has its place, but it’s not where I’d start a small budget.

Step 4: how do you stop ads showing to people miles away?

Target only the towns you cover, and change one hidden setting. Under Locations, enter the towns or a radius around your base that match where you actually work. Then click Location options and change it to Presence, which means people in or regularly in your targeted locations. The default also includes people who are just interested in your area, which can mean paying for clicks from someone in Manchester planning a weekend in Southport.

It’s one of the most common leaks I find when I take over an account, and it takes ten seconds to fix. Google explains the difference in its guide to location options.

Step 5: how much should you spend and how should you bid?

Start with a daily budget you’re happy with for a month, and keep the bidding simple. Google’s keyword planner, under Tools, gives you a rough idea of what clicks cost for your trade and area, and that varies a lot. A plumber and a solicitor in the same town can be paying very different amounts for a click. Your budget needs to cover enough clicks each day to learn anything.

For bidding, a brand new account has no conversion history for Google to learn from. I usually start on Maximise clicks with a maximum cost per click set, so one expensive search can’t eat the budget. Once the account has a steady flow of tracked calls and forms, switching to Maximise conversions lets Google bid harder on the searches that bring in work.

Step 6: how should you choose keywords and ad groups?

One ad group for each service, with a small set of tightly related keywords in each. If you’re a plumber, boiler repairs, leak repairs and bathroom fitting each get their own ad group, so each one can have its own ad and point to its own page. Mixing everything into one group means the ads end up vague and the clicks land in the wrong place.

Use phrase match and exact match to begin with. Phrase match is written in quotes, like “boiler repair liverpool”, and exact match in square brackets. Broad match, the default, lets Google show your ad for anything it thinks is related, which on a small budget usually means paying for searches you’d never have chosen. My guide on how to choose the right SEO keywords covers picking searches that bring in buyers rather than browsers, and the same thinking applies here.

Step 7: what are negative keywords and why do they matter?

They’re searches you tell Google never to show your ads for, and they’re where most wasted spend hides. Before you launch, add a starting list at campaign level. Words like jobs, salary, course, training, free, DIY, how to and second hand cover a lot of people who were never going to pay you. Add anything specific to your trade too. A boiler engineer probably doesn’t want to pay for searches about boiler manuals or boiler parts.

The list grows every week once you’re live, because the search terms report shows exactly what people typed before clicking. Google’s guide to negative keywords explains the match types if you want the detail.

Step 8: how do you write Google Ads that get the right people clicking?

Be specific, and put people off as well as drawing them in. Google’s responsive search ads let you add up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, then mix them to find what works. Use the service and the town in your headlines, mention what makes you different, like fixed prices, same-day visits or years trading, and be clear about who you are. If you don’t do small jobs, say so. It saves you paying for clicks from people you’d turn down anyway.

Then add assets, which used to be called extensions. A call asset puts your number on the ad, sitelinks send people to specific pages, and a location asset linked to your Google Business Profile shows your address and reviews. They make the ad bigger and more useful, and they cost nothing extra to add.

What should you check once your ads are live?

The search terms report, every week. You’ll find it under Insights and reports. It lists the exact searches that triggered your ads, and it’s nearly always an eye-opener the first time. Add anything irrelevant to your negative list, and look for good searches you could add as keywords in their own right. Then look at your conversions. Move budget towards the ad groups bringing in calls and forms, and away from the ones that only bring clicks. That weekly habit is most of the difference between an account that pays for itself and one that slowly drains money.

Give a new campaign a few weeks before judging it, and don’t keep changing everything at once, or you’ll never know what made the difference. If you’re weighing up whether ads are right for you at all, paid vs organic traffic sets out the trade-off, and the benefits of PPC for local businesses covers when ads make the most sense.

Questions people ask me

Keep reading

Ads only work if the page they land on does its job, so how to turn website visitors into enquiries is worth reading next. Make sure your tracking is in place with how to set up Google Analytics 4. And if you’d rather hand the whole thing over, my PPC campaigns page explains how I run ads for local businesses.

Hi, I’m Pete

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