You have been told Google Ads will bring you work. You have also been told you need a website first, and that a website means money you would rather put into the van, plus a few weeks of back and forth you do not have time for. So the obvious question is whether you can just skip it and get the ads running.

The short answer is no, not really — but it is a far smaller job than it sounds. Here is what Google actually requires, what you lose without a page, and the smallest thing that will do the job.

Google needs somewhere to send the click

Every search ad has a destination. When someone clicks your ad, Google sends them to a web address you have given it, and Google checks that address: it needs to load, it needs to work on a phone, and it needs to match what the ad promised. Ads pointing at nothing, at a broken link, or at a page that has no connection to the search get disapproved and stop running.

That is the part people miss. Google is not being snobby about web design. The click has to land somewhere, and Google will not keep charging you for clicks that land nowhere useful.

You can technically point an ad at a social media page, and some trades do. It is often allowed, but it is a poor destination: the person lands on a feed rather than an offer, nothing tells them which areas you cover, and the enquiry ends up buried in a message folder you check at nine at night. Google's requirements change from time to time too, so check the current destination rules in Google Ads Help before you build a campaign around them.

What not having a page actually costs you

Set aside the rules for a second. Here is what you are really giving up:

• You cannot track what works. Conversion tracking is a small piece of code that sits on your page and tells Google "this click turned into a phone call or a form". Without it, Google is guessing which clicks are worth bidding on, and so are you. You end up paying for traffic with no idea which half of it was any good.
• You have nowhere to prove you are any good. A search ad gives you a headline and a line or two of text. That is not enough to win a job. The page is where the before-and-after photos go, where your reviews go, where you say which towns you cover and how quickly you can get there.
• You cannot answer the obvious questions. Do you do flats? Are you insured? Do you work weekends? Every unanswered question is a reason to go back to the search results and ring the next firm.
• You do not control it. A page you own shows what you want. A social page shows whatever the platform decides to show next — sometimes your competitors.

None of that is about looking fancy. It is about the twenty seconds after the click, which is where the enquiry is won or lost.

The one page that is usually enough

Here is the bit that should take the pressure off. You do not need a website. You need one page. For most trades running ads for one service in one area, a single page does the job:

• What you do, named the way customers say it — "gutter cleaning in Stoke-on-Trent", not "exterior maintenance solutions"
• The towns and areas you actually cover, written out in full
• Your phone number at the top, as a tappable link, because most of this traffic is on a phone
• A short form — name, number, postcode, what the job is. Nothing more
• Six to ten of your own photos, including before and afters
• A line on how you price, even if it is only "send me a photo and I'll give you a number the same day"
• Your reviews, and your real business details

That is it. No blog. No "about us" page with a stock photo of an office you do not have. No ten service pages you will never get round to finishing. One honest page, built in a day, that loads fast on a phone.

If you advertise more than one service, you will eventually want a page for each, because the page should say back to people exactly what they searched for. But that is a problem for later, not a reason to put off starting.

What about call ads and Local Services Ads?

Two things usually come up here, and both are worth knowing about.

Call ads make the phone ring rather than sending people to a site — the ad shows your number and the click starts a call. Good for urgent work. They do not remove the need for a page though: Google asks for a verification address, a web page showing the same number, so it can check the ad is really yours.

Local Services Ads are a different product that sits above the normal search ads. They work from a verified business profile rather than a website, and you are vetted first. They only cover certain trades and areas, so check whether yours is eligible rather than assume either way.

Before any of that: your Google Business Profile is free. If you have nothing at all, sort that out first and start asking customers for reviews. It works whether or not you ever spend a penny on ads.

If you are not going to build a page, advertise somewhere else

If you genuinely are not going to build a page — no time, no appetite, not now — then Facebook and Instagram ads are the better fit, because lead forms open inside the app. Someone taps your ad, a short form appears with their name and number already filled in, and the enquiry comes through to you. No website needed anywhere in that chain.

The trade-off is intent. Somebody searching "blocked gutter" has a problem right now. Somebody scrolling Facebook on their lunch break was not looking for you at all. You can win work from both, but social enquiries usually need chasing harder and more of them go cold.

When the answer is "not yet"

A few situations where we would tell you to wait:

• If building the page would eat your whole budget. Ads need steady spend over weeks to settle down and tell you anything. A page and three days of clicks is money gone for nothing. Have both covered, or wait.
• If you cannot answer the phone during the day. Paid clicks are the most expensive leads you will ever buy. Letting them go to voicemail while you are up a ladder is the fastest way to decide advertising does not work.
• If you do not know which job you want more of. "More work" is not something you can build a page or a campaign around. "More gutter clearing in these five postcodes" is.

So, do you need one?

You need somewhere for the click to land. That is the real requirement, and one good page meets it. It does not need to be a proper website and it does not need to be expensive — it needs to say what you do, where you do it and how to reach you, and it needs to work on a phone.

If you have been putting off running Google Ads because you think you need a website first, the thing standing in your way is smaller than you think.