Do I need to pay for Google Ads?
Not to start. Ads bring calls the day you turn them on and stop the day you stop paying. A profile, a good site, and reviews keep working after the work is done. Ads make sense later, on top of that, if you want more volume.
What ads do well
Speed. If you need the phone ringing this week, ads are the only thing that does that. They also let you show up for a town or a service you do not rank for yet.
What they cost you
Every call has a price, and in a lot of service trades that price is not small. The moment you pause the budget, the calls stop. If your website is slow or your profile is thin, you are paying to send people to a page that does not convert them, which is the most expensive version of this.
The order I recommend
- Fix the site and the profile first, so anything you send there actually turns into calls.
- Get reviews moving.
- Then, if you want more volume than the free stuff brings, run ads on top of it.
When I would say yes to ads
A new business with no reviews and no history that needs work now. A seasonal push. A new town you are expanding into. In those cases ads are the right tool, and a solid site makes every ad dollar go further.
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