Google Ads for a local business. Up there in days, not months.
Getting up the rankings properly takes months and it is worth doing. Ads sit above the normal results from the day the campaign goes live. Setting one up properly takes a week or two, because most of that time goes on blocking the searches that were never going to be work.
The account is in your name, your budget goes straight to Google, and you can turn it up for a quiet fortnight and down when the diary fills.
Should I do local SEO or Google Ads?
Both, and in that order, unless you need the phone to ring this month. Local SEO is the one that compounds and costs nothing per click, and it takes months. Ads start the day they are approved and stop the day you turn them off.
The case for ads is that they are a tap. A quiet fortnight, a new town, a gap in the diary, or a job you make good money on and want more of: you turn it up, and you turn it down again when you are booked. What we do to your Google listing runs the whole time either way, and it is on every plan.
Where does the money actually go?
You should be able to see exactly where every pound goes. Here is every part of it, including the two that save you money rather than spend it.
Turn it up when you are quiet, down when you are booked
You are never locked in. Diary full? Ease off and stop spending. Fortnight looking thin? Open it up. So you can run it hard through the slow months and barely at all in the busy ones.
You pay for the right clicks, not all of them
Anyone can switch ads on and burn a budget on tyre kickers and DIYers. We spend as much time blocking the searches that were never going to be work as chasing the ones that are. That list is where the money is saved.
You see what it actually brought in
Set up properly, so every enquiry is tracked back to the ad that caused it. You know what a job cost you to win, in pounds, so you can turn it up on the work that pays best.
The account is yours
Opened in your name, on your card, and Google itself recommends it that way. If you ever leave you keep the account and everything it has learned, which is the part that makes it work.
£495 to set up, £199 a month to run
That is our fee. It is not your ad budget. Your budget is separate, it is yours, and you choose it. While it is under £1,500 a month our fee stays at £199, and above that it becomes 10% of your budget. We tell you before it changes, not after.
Your budget goes straight to Google
You pay Google directly. We never touch it and we never take a cut of it. You can see every penny, change it whenever you like, and stop it any time.
How do we make Local Services Ads pay in the UK?
By getting the job list and the service area exactly right on day one. In the UK every job type ticked and every extra mile is a billable lead. They sit above everything else on the page, and you pay per lead rather than per click. For a trade that is often the better first move.
What decides whether a lead is billable?
The job list and the service area you set, and we get both right on day one. Every job type ticked is a billable lead, and every extra mile is a billable lead.
Google's own wording is that lead credits are not available for advertisers in EMEA, and the UK is in EMEA. It has also stopped supporting credits for leads outside the job types or the area you set, so the setup is the whole defence.
What does the Google badge mean now?
There is one blue Google Verified badge, and it means verified. Google has discontinued the money-back guarantee that went with the old one, with consumer claims only for services booked before 7 December 2025.
So the badge is worth having for what it is, and the trust comes from your reviews and your listing beside it.
What does verification actually involve here?
Your licence or registration and your insurance, checked against official records. The background checks people read about apply in the United States and Canada, not here. Allow weeks rather than days, and start it first, because nothing serves until it completes whatever the budget is.
Your certificate has to be valid for at least a fortnight after you send it, so do not send one that is about to lapse.
What decides whether you show up on it?
Answering the phone, and your Google listing. Google names responsiveness in as many words and says missed calls may count against you. The reviews, photographs and hours it shows come straight off your Business Profile.
So most of the work is the listing work we already do on every plan, and the rest is picking up. The AI receptionist exists for the half nobody can do from a roof.
What people ask before they start
Five, and they are the ones that decide how far your budget goes.
Do you track people before they have agreed to it?
No. The advertising tag does not load until a visitor says yes. Not loaded and waiting, not loaded with a placeholder. It does not load.
That is a UK rule rather than a Google one, and it is the thing every Google Ads playbook in circulation leaves out. It also means somebody who refuses gets no remarketing, which we say plainly at the start rather than in month two. What this site stores, and when.
What decides where my ad sits?
Your bid, the quality of the ad, and the page it lands on. The fourth thing is what everybody else in the auction is doing that second.
The page is the part we control, and it is built before a penny is spent. It is also the same page that has to earn the enquiry anyway.
How long before I know whether it is working?
Long enough for the enquiries to be countable, and one quiet week is not evidence. Every enquiry is tracked back to the ad that caused it, so what you get is what a job cost you to win in pounds rather than a report about clicks.
Can I stop it?
Whenever you like, and you keep the account. It is opened in your name on your card, Google itself recommends it that way, and if you ever leave you keep the account and everything it has learned.
Do I need a website first?
Yes, because ads amplify the page they land on. The page is a third of what Google scores an ad on, and it is the same page that has to earn the enquiry anyway.
Every price is published, including the plan the ads would sit on top of.
Want to know if ads are worth it for you?
Tell us the trade, the towns and roughly what a job is worth, and you get a straight answer on what your budget would do.