SEO is long-term; ads are fast. If you need clients now, Ads works — but only if set up with care. Here is the shortest safe path.
Before you launch — three conditions
- A page that converts — the ad brings people to a page; if it does not sell, you pay for visits with no result
- Measurement — conversion tracking set up and tested. Without it you do not know what works.
- One clear goal — a call? a form? an order? Pick one.
Setup (the safest version)
- Type: Search — not Display, not Performance Max for a first campaign. Search means you appear when someone is LOOKING. That is intent, not interruption.
- Location: exactly your area. Not the whole country if you work in one town.
- Budget: start small. You learn at the lowest cost.
- Keywords: 5-15 specific ones, not 200. With buying intent: emergency plumber plus your town, not plumbing.
- Match type: phrase match to start; broad spends the budget on anything and everything
The thing that saves half your budget
Negative keywords. Add: free, jobs, hiring, DIY, how to do it myself, forum, wikipedia. Without them you pay for clicks from people looking for free advice or a job. This is the first thing we do and the last thing most people do.
The ad itself
- Put the keyword in the headline — people click on a match
- State a benefit and a call: same-day service, 2-year warranty
- Send them to the exact page, not the homepage
- Add extensions: phone, location, links to services
The first two weeks
Watch: the Search terms report (what people ACTUALLY typed — your new negative keywords come from here), cost per conversion, and which keywords spend without results — pause those.
When Ads is not worth it
- Low margin in a competitive niche (the click costs more than the profit)
- Nobody to answer the calls that come
- The site is slow or broken on mobile — you pay for people who leave