Most small-business ad budgets are lost on the landing page rather than in the ad account. The click arrives, the page takes four seconds to show anything on a mid-range phone, the phone number is a picture, the form has nine fields and no confirmation. The campaign report then says "low conversion rate" and the owner concludes that ads do not work for their trade.
This checklist is what we run before a single dollar goes to Google or Meta for a local service business. It fits on one page and takes an afternoon to go through.
1. One page per offer
An ad for "emergency drain cleaning" has to land on a page about emergency drain cleaning, with that phrase in the headline. Sending every ad to the home page is the single most common mistake we see on audits. If the offer has no page yet, a one-page landing is cheaper than a month of wasted clicks; the scope of a landing page is described on the landing page development page.
2. The phone number is a link
On mobile, the number in the header must be a tel: link and a sticky button must stay on screen while the visitor scrolls. Test it on a real phone, not in the browser's device emulator.
3. The form asks for three things
Name, phone or email, and one question that qualifies the lead (city, date, number of guests, type of job). Everything else can be asked in the reply. Every extra required field removes a share of submissions.
4. A confirmation the visitor can see
After submit, the page shows a message with what happens next and when. The same event fires a conversion in analytics. Without this, the ad platform optimises toward people who click, not people who enquire.
5. Tracking is wired and tested
Google Analytics 4 with a key event for form submit and for phone click, Google Ads conversion import, Meta Pixel or Conversions API for Meta campaigns. Submit a test lead and watch it arrive in each report before launch, then delete the test from the CRM.
6. Speed on a cheap phone
Open the page on a mid-range Android over mobile data. If the headline and the button are not visible within two seconds, compress images, remove the slider and defer third-party scripts. Core Web Vitals in Search Console will show the same problem a week later, but the ad budget is being spent today.
7. Price orientation
A visitor from an ad wants to know roughly what the job costs. "From $X" with a short list of what changes the price keeps the ones who can afford you and saves the time of the ones who cannot. If pricing a website is the question, the cost drivers by site type are explained in how much a website costs in Canada; the same logic applies to any service page.
8. Reviews and a Google Business Profile link
Three or four recent reviews with names and a link to the Google profile. For a local business, the Maps listing is often where the visitor goes next to check that you are real.
9. Area served
The city and the neighbourhoods you cover, written in text, with a map if you have a service area. Ads targeted to a region lose money when the page does not say you work there.
10. The old URL still works
If the page replaced an older one, the old address redirects with a 301. Ads are sometimes copied from last year's campaign and still point to the old URL.
11. The page is indexable, but the thank-you page is not
The landing page should be reachable by Google; the confirmation page should carry noindex, otherwise it starts collecting organic visits and inflating the conversion count.
12. Someone answers within the hour
The best landing page cannot fix a missed call. Agree who picks up during the campaign hours, and test the enquiry route end to end: form to email to phone call back.
How to use the list
Go through the twelve points with the page open on a phone. Fix the red ones before launch, launch with a small daily budget, and read the first week's report by enquiries rather than clicks. If the enquiries come, scale; if the clicks come without enquiries, the problem is on this list, not in the keyword bids.
Tatiana Koval, Marketing MIX (Ottawa, since 2012)
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