Five things your website needs before you spend money on ads

Paid ads are the quickest way to put your business in front of new customers. They're also the quickest way to waste money if the page they land on isn't ready. Before you spend a dollar on Google or Meta, check these five things.

1. It loads quickly on a phone

Most people who click an ad for a local business are on their phone, often on mobile data. If the page takes more than a few seconds to appear, many of them leave before they see anything. Large images and heavy plugins are the usual causes. Google's free PageSpeed Insights tool will tell you where you stand.

2. Every page has one clear next step

Decide what you want a visitor to do: call, book, order or send an enquiry. Put that action near the top of the page and repeat it further down. A page that offers six different options usually gets none of them.

3. You can see which enquiries came from where

If you can't tell whether a call came from an ad, a search result or a regular customer, you can't tell whether the ads are working. At a minimum, set up conversion tracking for form submissions and calls in Google Analytics and in the ad platforms themselves. This is the first thing we set up for every client, because without it every other decision is a guess.

4. Your pages match what people search for

Someone searching for "emergency plumber in Providence" wants a page about emergency plumbing in Providence, not your home page. A dedicated page for each main service and area improves your ad quality scores, lowers your cost per click and helps you rank in normal search results too.

5. It gives people a reason to trust you

Real photos of your team and premises, recent reviews, your address and opening hours, and a phone number that gets answered. These details matter more than clever copy, especially to someone who has never heard of you.

Where to start

You don't need a new website to fix most of this. Speed, tracking and clear calls to action can often be improved in a few weeks. If you'd rather have it done for you, our website plans cover builds and ongoing care, and our performance marketing plans pick up from there. Tell us what you're working with and we'll tell you what we'd fix first.