The Biggest Mistakes Local Businesses Make With Google Ads

Look, I've been doing this for 15 years now and I've seen enough local businesses light money on fire with Google Ads to write a book about it. But instead I'm writing this, because yesterday I had a call with a plumber in Stevenage who'd spent £2,400 over three months and got exactly two enquiries. Two. And when I looked at his account... well, let's just say every mistake was there.

The thing is, Google Ads isn't hard because it's complicated. It's hard because it lets you think you're doing it right while you're absolutely not.

The "I'll just target my service" approach

Right, so you sell kitchens. You type "kitchens" into the keyword box, set your location to Hertfordshire, and off you go.

Except you're now bidding on: - People looking for kitchen inspiration photos - Someone in Hitchin searching "kitchens for sale" who wants B&Q, not a full refit - "Kitchen ideas" which is 90% people scrolling Pinterest - "Kitchen units" which means they're doing it themselves - That weird traffic from people who spell "chickens" wrong (yes, this happens)

I had a client who runs a bathroom company in Letchworth. Three weeks in, I checked his search terms report. Someone had clicked his ad after searching "bathroom selfies". Cost him £3.80. He was not amused.

The mistake here is thinking your service name is a buying signal. It's not. "Emergency plumber Baldock" is a buying signal. "Plumbing" is someone doing homework, or looking for a job, or trying to fix something with YouTube.

You need to think about what someone types when they've already decided to hire someone. That's your keyword. Everything else is just noise that costs money.

Sending everyone to your homepage

This one drives me spare. You're running an ad for "boiler repair Hitchin" and when someone clicks... they land on your homepage. Which talks about all your services. And has a nice photo of your team. And a paragraph about your 25 years of experience.

Meanwhile, the person who clicked wanted to know if you can fix their boiler today and how much it costs.

They're gone. Back button. Next result.

Your landing page needs to answer the question the search asked. If they searched for boiler repair, the page needs to be about boiler repair. In Hitchin. With a phone number at the top. And probably another phone number halfway down.

I know this sounds obvious when I write it out, but I've looked at maybe 40 local business Google Ads accounts in the last year and I'd say 30 of them are doing this. It's the single biggest waste of money I see, because you're paying for the click and then immediately throwing away the conversion.

Not using negative keywords (or not knowing what they are)

OK so this is going to sound technical but it's not. Negative keywords are just words that tell Google "don't show my ad for searches that include this word."

If you're a kitchen fitter and you don't want DIY traffic, you add "diy" as a negative keyword. If you don't want people looking for jobs, you add "jobs" and "careers" and "hiring".

Without these, you get all sorts. I saw a roofing company in Royston who was showing up for "roof rack fitting" because they hadn't excluded "rack". Cost them about £80 before they noticed.

The search terms report shows you every search that triggered your ad. You should be looking at this weekly, minimum. Probably daily if you're spending more than a few hundred a month. And every time you see something irrelevant, add it as a negative.

This is basic hygiene. Like brushing your teeth. Not doing it doesn't kill you immediately but the damage adds up and then suddenly it's expensive to fix.

Forgetting mobile exists

Half your clicks are probably mobile. Maybe more. And if your website takes six seconds to load or your phone number isn't clickable or the contact form doesn't work on a phone screen... you're just paying Google to demonstrate that you're not worth hiring.

I had a call with a guy who does driveways last month. His mobile conversion rate was 2%. Desktop was 18%. Same traffic, same ads, same offers. His site just didn't work properly on phones. He'd been running ads for seven months without checking.

Test your site on your actual phone. Not the developer view in Chrome. Your phone. Click your own ad. Try to fill in the form. Try to call yourself. If anything is even slightly annoying, fix it. Because if you find it annoying, your customers definitely do.

Running ads without conversion tracking

How do you know if it's working if you don't measure what "working" means?

And no, "we got busier" doesn't count. Maybe it's the ads. Maybe it's word of mouth. Maybe it's the weather. You don't know.

Google Ads can track phone calls. It can track form submissions. It can even track if someone clicked your ad and then called you later, as long as you set it up right. But most local businesses I see have none of this set up. They're flying blind.

Which means they don't know which keywords work, which ads work, which landing pages work. They're just... hoping. And hope is expensive when you're paying per click.

Actually, this connects to something I've been banging on about for three years now. AEO and AI search are changing how people find local businesses. ChatGPT and Perplexity and even Google's AI overviews are answering questions directly now, which means the click-through rates on ads are shifting. In 2026, you need to know your numbers even more than you did in 2023, because the landscape is moving and if you're not tracking properly, you won't notice until you've wasted a lot of money.

Competing with national companies on generic terms

"Boiler installation" as a keyword. Nationwide companies with massive budgets are bidding on that. You're a one-van operation in Baldock. You cannot win that bidding war, and even if you could, it would bankrupt you.

"Boiler installation Baldock" though? Much cheaper. Much more relevant. Much more likely to convert.

Add the location. Add qualifiers like "emergency" or "same day" or "local". Make the keyword specific to what you actually offer and where you actually work. You're not British Gas. Stop trying to compete with them on their terms.

Setting it up once and forgetting about it

Google Ads is not a set-and-forget thing. The costs change. Your competitors change. Search behaviour changes. Seasons change (if you're in a seasonal business).

I know business owners are busy. I get it. But if you're spending £500 a month and you haven't looked at the account in six weeks, you're probably wasting at least half of that. Maybe more.

You need to check it. Or pay someone to check it. Weekly at minimum.

Trusting Google's "recommendations"

Google will helpfully suggest you expand your keywords, increase your budget, add more locations, try Performance Max, switch to automated bidding...

Some of these suggestions are good. Many of them are just Google trying to get you to spend more money. They are not your friend. They are a business trying to maximise revenue.

That "optimise your campaign" notification? Read it carefully. Sometimes it's suggesting you turn on settings that will absolutely tank your performance because Google gets paid either way.

I'm not saying ignore everything Google suggests. I'm saying don't just click "Apply All" and assume they're helping you.

The thing is

Most of these mistakes aren't complicated to fix. They're just things nobody told you to look out for. Google makes it easy to start spending money. They don't make it easy to spend it well.

And right now, with AI search and answer engines changing how people find businesses, getting your paid search right is more important than it was a couple of years ago. You can't just rely on showing up in the local pack anymore. You need to actually understand what's working and what's not.

If you're running Google Ads for your local business in North Herts and you recognise yourself in any of this, you should probably book a call and we can look at what's actually happening in your account. Or if you're thinking about the bigger picture of how people are finding businesses now, have a look at what we do with AEO in North Hertfordshire.

Either way, stop setting money on fire. It's boring to watch.