Google Ads landing page checklist: what to fix before you pay for clicks

What a Google Ads landing page is, and its one job

A Google Ads landing page is the page someone reaches after clicking your ad: the final URL you set, or another page on your site if Google picks one for you. Google Ads Help defines landing page experience as a measure of how relevant and useful your landing page will be to people who click your ad, and rates it Above average, Average or Below average for each keyword.

The page has one job: turn a click into an enquiry you want. For a local service business, that enquiry arrives by one of two routes, a phone call or a form, and both count as the same goal. Anything else, such as a newsletter sign-up, social icons or a second promotion, competes for the same tap.

That's why the homepage is rarely the right destination. A homepage speaks to everyone, so the service a person searched for is one tile among many. Google's advice on optimising ads and landing pages says not to make people hunt around for information they might need, and to put important information towards the top of the page so they don't have to scroll down to see it. A page built for one service can.

You don't have to strip the menu out completely. Google's help on Ad Rank lists ease of landing page navigation among the things it assesses, and on a landing page, easy navigation means a short path to the enquiry. Keep what helps a person decide to call or enquire, and cut what leads them somewhere else. The table sorts the usual elements.

If the campaign uses AI Max for Search, Google says final URL expansion is turned on by default, so clicks can land on other pages of your domain that it judges relevant to the search. Check every page it might pick can take an enquiry, or add URL exclusions in the AI Max settings for the ones that can't.

Match the first screen to the ad

Start with message match: the words someone reads on arrival should echo what they searched and the ad they clicked. Google's own Quality Score tips put it plainly: give people what they're looking for, and keep messaging consistent from ad to landing page so the page follows through on the ad's offer or call to action.

Responsive search ads make this harder than it looks. You can give Google up to 15 headlines and 4 descriptions, and it tests combinations to learn which suit each search, so any headline might be the one a customer reads. If one says free quotes and another says weekend call-outs, the page has to back both.

It's a policy line too. Google's misrepresentation policy doesn't allow ads promising services or offers that are unavailable or aren't easily found from the destination, and its examples include a call to action in the ad that isn't easily available from the landing page.

Say a pest control business advertises termite inspections in Noosa. A page that opens with 'Termite inspections in Noosa and nearby suburbs' and repeats the free quote offer does its job. A homepage about every pest the business treats makes the visitor hunt.

Below the headline, write for someone reading on a phone. Google's landing page advice asks for useful, original information and for being clear about your product or service and what it does. In practice that means short paragraphs, plain words and the outcome the customer wants before the features that deliver it: 'hot water back on today' before the brands you fit.

Images should show the work in the ad. A photo of your own van, team or a finished job tells a local buyer you're real; a generic stock image of a smiling model tells them nothing. Large image files are a common reason pages load slowly, so resize and compress each one to the size it actually displays at.

• The H1 names the service in the words people search, plus the place the ad targets.
• Every offer in any headline is on the page and still true today.
• Each ad group points to the page for its own service, not the homepage.
• One specific offer appears near the top and again beside the form.
• The first image shows your real work, team or vehicle, compressed to its display size.

Put a working phone number at the top

For many local service businesses, a phone call is how most enquiries arrive, so make the number the page's first call to action. Google's Quality Score tips note that people value ease of navigation even more on mobile websites, and a number they can tap at the top of the screen is the shortest route to an enquiry.

If your ads carry a call asset, the number also affects whether the ad can run. Google's unverified phone number policy says the phone number in your ad must be shown on the website included in your ad, and suggests putting it in your source code in E.164 format so Google's crawler is more likely to detect it. For an Australian number, that's +61 followed by the number without its first 0. A tel: link written that way does both jobs.

Google lets you schedule a call asset to show only on certain days and hours, such as when your business is answering calls. Put the same hours next to the number on the page.

Know what a tap measures. Google's help on phone number clicks says that conversion tracks clicks on your number, not actual phone calls. To count calls, a Google forwarding number (available in Australia) can replace your number on the site for people who came from an ad, and a call counts once it lasts longer than a minimum length you set. Matching those counts to your phone log is covered in call tracking and conversion reconciliation.

Make the button easy to hit and easy to see. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.2) set a minimum target size of 24 by 24 CSS pixels at level AA, with some exceptions, and a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. Treat those as floors: size the call button for a thumb, in a colour that stands out in bright sun.

• The number is text with a tel: link, never part of an image.
• It's visible on a phone without scrolling, and again beside the form.
• The call button is large enough for a thumb and its text passes the WCAG contrast minimum.
• Answering hours sit next to the number and match the call asset schedule.
• Someone answers while the ads run, or the voicemail says when you'll ring back.

Qualify, prove and protect the enquiry

A landing page should help the right people say yes and the wrong people leave before they call. Every poor-fit enquiry it screens out is a callback you don't have to make. Qualify with plain facts near the top: the suburbs or region you cover, the jobs you take and the ones you don't (residential only, for example), how you quote (after a site visit or over the phone), and your licence or registration number where your trade or profession has one.

Then let the form do a little sorting. One or two questions, such as suburb and job type, tell you who to ring first. Google's own lead forms work the same way: its qualifying responses feature collects details about a person's needs, interests or purchase readiness before they submit. For the campaign settings upstream of the page, see why Google Ads produce the wrong leads.

Next, give a stranger a reason to believe you. Google's landing page advice suggests featuring reviews that show real opinions from other customers. The ACCC says businesses must not create fake or misleading reviews, suppress or edit negative ones, or hide that a review was incentivised. Quote genuine reviews as written, use real photos of your jobs and team, and show your business name and contact details plainly. Health practitioners face tighter testimonial rules (see the FAQ).

Every claim has to hold up. The ACCC says a business must be able to prove any claim it advertises, and that fine print must not conflict with the overall message. A headline promising free quotes, with small print that charges for the site visit, is the kind of mismatch the ACCC warns about. Countdown timers and 'only two spots left' banners carry the same risk unless true.

Build the form so it's quick to finish on a phone. Every field is a question someone must answer before you hear from them, so ask only what you need to call back and sort the job.

Tell people what happens to their details. Under Australian Privacy Principle 5, an organisation the Privacy Act covers must take reasonable steps, at or before collection, to make people aware of who is collecting, why, and how to reach its privacy policy, among other matters. The OAIC says most small businesses aren't covered, but some are regardless of size, including health service providers. Check where you stand; either way, a one-line notice and a privacy policy link beside the button costs nothing. Serve the page over https too: Google's data collection and use policy doesn't allow collecting certain sensitive numbers, such as healthcare or driver's licence numbers, on a page without SSL.

• Fields: name, phone, suburb and job type; email and message optional unless you need them.
• The button says what happens next, such as 'Request a callback' or 'Get my quote', never 'Submit'.
• Fields carry autocomplete values (name, tel, email, address-level2), which WCAG 2.2 criterion 1.3.5 expects for fields about the user, so the phone can fill them in.
• The phone field uses type="tel" so a phone shows the number pad, and the email field uses type="email".
• Errors appear beside the field that caused them, and the form keeps what the person already typed.
• Use more than one step only when the first answer changes the questions, such as repair versus new installation.
• A short collection notice and privacy policy link sit beside the button.

Make the success state something you can count

An enquiry is finished when the form has actually gone through, and the page should mark that moment for the customer and for Google Ads. Replace the form with a confirmation, or send people to a thank-you page, that says what happens next and when, with the phone number repeated for anyone who can't wait.

Say a physio clinic in Buderim gets a booking request at 7pm. 'Thanks, we've got your request. Reception rings back from 8am tomorrow' sets an expectation the clinic can meet. 'Submitted' tells the patient nothing.

Fire the conversion on that confirmation, not on the button. Google Ads can count a conversion when someone reaches a page, such as a thank-you page, or when they click a link or button. A click on Submit only records the press, so it can count an enquiry that never went through, say because a required field was empty. If you use a thank-you page, keep it out of menus and search results, so the only way in is sending the form.

Set the count for leads to One. Google Ads Help calls it a good choice when what matters is whether a lead was generated, and it counts only one conversion per ad click, so a refreshed thank-you page from the same click isn't counted again. If Google Analytics also records the enquiry, make only one of the two a primary conversion. Google Ads bids on primary actions and keeps secondary ones for observation, so bidding never sees the same enquiry twice.

Then test it. Tag Assistant, opened from Troubleshoot in the Google Ads conversions summary, connects to your page and watches while you trigger the conversion. Here's what each trigger on the page actually proves.

Worked example: an electrician's switchboard page, top to bottom

Say a hypothetical electrician based in Maroochydore runs an ad group for switchboard upgrades across the Sunshine Coast. The headlines include 'Switchboard upgrades, Sunshine Coast', 'Licensed electrician' and 'Fixed quote after inspection'. The business takes residential work only and doesn't travel north of Noosa.

Step one is the final URL. The ad group points to a switchboard upgrade page, not the homepage or a general electrical page. Because the campaign uses AI Max, the owner checks which other pages final URL expansion could choose and excludes the careers page and the blog.

Step two is the first screen. On a phone, the visitor sees the H1 'Switchboard upgrades on the Sunshine Coast', one line saying quotes are fixed after an on-site inspection, the licence number, a call button with today's answering hours and a 'Book an inspection' button that jumps to the form. Every headline in the ad now has something on screen to back it.

Step three is the body, in the order the table sets out. Step four is the form: four fields, a 'Book my inspection' button, and a confirmation saying when the office rings back, with the conversion firing there. Step five is the launch test below, run on a real phone.

The business is illustrative. The point is the order: every block answers the question a visitor has at that moment, or moves them towards the call or the form.

Launch, then read Google's verdict and improve

A page that fails Google's destination requirements can stop your ads running. The policy covers pages that don't work, such as 404 errors or 'under construction' pages, pages Google's AdsBot can't crawl, and a display URL on a different domain from the final URL. Its destination experience rules also bar pop-ups that get in the way of the content, and anything that interferes with the back button.

Make sure the click ID survives. With auto-tagging on, Google adds a GCLID parameter to the page URL. Google warns that a small percentage of sites serve an error page when extra parameters are added, and that redirects must pass the GCLID on, or conversions can't be tracked back to the click.

Google's Quality Score tips also ask for a mobile-friendly site and faster loading, and say load speed can be the difference between someone bouncing or buying. PageSpeed Insights reports on both mobile and desktop. Its good range for Core Web Vitals includes Largest Contentful Paint, a measure of loading, within 2.5 seconds, and Interaction to Next Paint, a measure of how quickly the page responds to taps and clicks, within 200 milliseconds.

Run the test below on a real phone, on mobile data, before launch and after any change to the ads or the page. Keep a dated copy each time.

After launch, read Google's verdict. In the Keywords view, open the columns menu and add Landing page exp. from the Quality Score group. A dash means there haven't been enough exact searches for that keyword in the last 90 days to rate it. Below average is the prompt to recheck message match, speed and the first screen; Average or Above average means Google sees no major problem. The Landing pages report, under Insights and reports, adds a mobile-friendly click rate: anything under 100% means the page didn't pass Google's mobile-friendly check every time.

Improve one thing at a time. A custom experiment in Google Ads shares the campaign's traffic and budget with a test version; Google recommends giving the experiment half the budget, and a cookie-based split so each person sees only one version. Ad variations can also test a different final URL. A small local account may never gather enough clicks for a clear result, so change one element, note the date, and compare enquiries in your own log over matching weeks. No one can guarantee a page will lift enquiries by a set amount, but these checks stop paid clicks failing for fixable reasons. If someone manages the account, ask them to walk you through each one; the Google Ads management page sets out what that work covers, and the website conversion checklist goes beyond paid traffic.

1. Read every headline and description in the ad, then the page's first screen. Fix anything promised that isn't there.
2. Tap the number. It should dial the right line, and someone should answer or the voicemail should say when you'll ring back.
3. Send the form marked TEST. Check the confirmation, check the enquiry reaches your inbox or CRM, and watch the conversion in Tag Assistant.
4. Send it again with a required field left blank. Nothing should count.
5. Open the page with?gclid=TeSter-123 added to the address. It should load with the parameter still there.
6. Run PageSpeed Insights and fix what it flags on mobile.
7. Check the privacy notice, the https padlock and the footer details are all present.
8. A week after launch, compare the conversions in Google Ads with your own enquiry log.