PPC for Small Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Pay-per-click advertising lets a small business appear in front of people at the moment they search for what it sells, and pay only when they click. Done well it is the most controllable marketing a business can buy; done carelessly it is the fastest way to spend a budget on nothing, and occasionally to lose the account altogether. This guide walks through setting up Google Ads properly, in the order the steps need to happen, with the compliance points built in rather than bolted on.

1. Decide what a result is

Before opening the account, decide the one action a visitor can take that is worth money to the business: a booked call, a quote request, an order. That action becomes the conversion the whole account is measured against. If you cannot name it, you cannot judge whether the advertising works.

2. Set the account up in the business’s own name

Open the account under the registered business, with a payment profile in the business’s name and a business payment method, and complete Advertiser Verification as soon as Google offers it. A surprising share of suspensions trace back to this step being skipped: an account opened by a freelancer in their own name, a personal card on a business account, or a payment profile that no longer matches the company. Google’s Suspicious Payment Activity policy exists to catch exactly that, and it does not distinguish between fraud and carelessness. One business, one account, one payment profile.

3. Find the words customers actually use

Start from how customers describe the problem, not from how the business describes the solution. Google’s Keyword Planner will show search volume and competition for those phrases; your own enquiries, reviews and sales calls will show the language. Favour specific phrases with clear buying intent over broad ones with volume: a small budget spent on twenty precise searches beats the same budget spread across two thousand vague ones.

4. Structure campaigns around offers

One campaign per service or product line, with a budget of its own, and ad groups inside each for closely related keywords. This keeps ads relevant to the search and lets you see which offers make money. Set the location targeting to where the business actually serves, and check that the setting is “presence” rather than “presence or interest” if you only want people in that area.

5. Write ads that the landing page can keep

Say what is true

Every claim in the ad should be true, specific, and visible on the page it leads to. Prices, guarantees, and availability that differ between ad and page are not just poor practice; under Google’s Unacceptable Business Practices policy they are grounds for suspending the account. The page should show who the business is, how to contact it, and what the terms are.

6. Set budgets and bids you can afford to learn with

Start with a daily budget the business can sustain for a month without results, because the first month is for learning. Begin with Maximise Clicks and a bid cap, or manual bidding, rather than a conversion-based strategy that has no conversions yet to learn from. Move to automated bidding once the account records a steady number of conversions each month.

7. Add negative keywords from the first week

Build a shared list of terms the business never wants to pay for, such as jobs, free, and DIY, and apply it to every campaign. Then review the search terms report weekly and add to it. Our guide to negative keywords covers the routine.

8. Measure, then adjust

Confirm the conversion from step one is being recorded, and that the count in Google Ads matches what the business received. After the first month, judge each campaign on cost per conversion, not on clicks, and move budget accordingly. Our guide to PPC return covers the levers in detail.

The mistakes that get new accounts suspended

• Payment details that do not match the business.
• Ads that promise more than the page delivers, or pages missing contact details and terms.
• Opening a second account, for any reason, after Google has taken action on the first.
• Ignoring a policy warning email for seven days.
• Letting someone run the account from their own login and their own payment method.

If an account has already been suspended, our overview of suspension policies explains what the notice means, and our suspension services begin with a free consultation. If you would rather have the account built and run for you, see Google Ads management.