Is Google Ads worth it for a Nottingham business?
Often, yes, if people search for what you sell and a customer is worth more than it costs to win one. Ads put you at the top of the results while someone is looking, and you can see exactly what you're paying for.
It's less useful when nobody searches for your service, or when your website can't turn a visit into an enquiry. Fix the page first in that case.
Which Google Ads tips matter most for Nottingham businesses?
These nine, in order. Skipping the first two is where most budget goes missing.
- Set up conversion tracking for forms, calls and sales before the ads go live.
- Set your locations to the areas you serve, and choose to reach people who are in them.
- Build small ad groups around one theme each, so the ad matches the search.
- Start with phrase and exact match, and use broad match only once tracking is working.
- Check the search terms report every week and add negative keywords for anything irrelevant.
- Write ads that repeat the searcher's words and say why you, with call, location and sitelink assets.
- Send each ad group to a landing page about that one thing, with a clear next step.
- Schedule ads for the hours you can answer the phone.
- Move budget to the campaigns that bring in enquiries, and cut the ones that don't.
How should you set location targeting for Nottingham?
Target the places you can actually serve: a radius around your premises, or named areas and postcodes. Exclude places you can't reach.
Then check the location option. Google's default shows ads to people in your area or interested in it, which can include people searching about Nottingham from anywhere. For most local businesses, reaching only people who are in or regularly in your area wastes less.
Which match types should you use?
Google Ads has three: broad, phrase and exact. Exact and phrase keep your ads close to what you chose. Broad reaches further and relies on Google's automated bidding to find the right searches.
Broad match works best when conversion tracking is solid and there's enough data. Without that, it can spend on loosely related searches, so start tighter and widen once you can see what converts.
Why do landing pages matter so much?
Because the click is only half the job. If someone searches for one service and lands on a homepage about everything, many will leave. A page that matches the ad, says what you do and where, and makes the next step obvious turns more of the same clicks into enquiries.
What wastes the most money in local accounts?
The same handful of problems:
- No conversion tracking, so nobody knows which clicks became customers.
- Ads shown to people outside the area you serve.
- Never checking the search terms, so irrelevant searches keep costing.
- Every ad pointing at the homepage.
- Ads running overnight with nobody to take the call.