Solved: Need Help Optimizing My Google Ads Account

Hi Brendan,

Thanks for reaching out! I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance on your Google Ads account for The Well Being Counseling and Fitness Center. It's really common to feel a bit lost when you first set up an account; they don't exactly make it straightforward. From my experience, getting the foundations right from the start is what makes the difference between burning money and getting a steady stream of new clients.

I've put together a pretty detailed breakdown of my thoughts below. I'll cover where I think you should focus your efforts first, what kind of strategy you should be looking at, and what sort of results are realistic. It's a bit of a read, but I reckon it'll give you a much clearer picture of how to move forward.

I'd say you need to nail the website first...

Before we even think about spending another dollar on ads, we have to talk about your website. It's the destination for all your ad traffic, and if it isn't set up to convert visitors into leads, then even the best ad campaign in the world will fail. I had a quick look at grwellbeing.com, and while it's a good start, there's a lot of room for improvement to make it a proper client-generating machine.

Think about it like this: your ad is the invitation to the party, but your website is the party itself. If people arrive and it's confusing, slow, or they don't know what to do next, they'll just leave. In advertising, we call this a low conversion rate, and it's the number one killer of profitability.

My main observation is that you need to think about your sales process. What is the single most important action you want a potential client to take when they land on your site? Is it to call you? Fill out a contact form? Schedule an initial consultation directly? Right now, there are a few options, but nothing is screaming at me as the clear next step. For services like counseling and fitness, where trust is a massive factor, the goal of the website should be to build that trust and make it incredibly easy for someone to take that first step in reaching out.

Here are a few things to consider on the website front:

-> A Clearer Call-to-Action (CTA): Your homepage should guide the visitor towards one primary action. For example, a prominent button that says "Schedule a Free Consultation" or "Request a Callback". This should be visible 'above the fold' (what you see without scrolling) and repeated throughout the page. Right now, a visitor has to do a bit of digging to figure out how to get in touch. We need to remove that friction.

-> Persuasive Copy: You're in a very personal business. People coming to you are often in a vulnerable state, looking for help. The text on your website needs to speak directly to their problems and emotions. It needs to show empathy and position you as the expert who can provide a solution. Investing in some professional sales copy could make a night-and-day difference. It's not just about listing your services; it's about selling the outcome – peace of mind, better health, a happier life. This is often overlooked but it's a massive part of getting people to convert.

-> Building Trust: When I land on the site, how do I know you're the real deal? Trust signals are hugely important. You could add things like:

• Testimonials/Reviews: Real stories from past clients are incredibly powerful. Even anonymous ones for the counseling side of things can work wonders.
• "As Seen In" Logos: If you've ever been featured in local press or blogs, get those logos on your site.
• Professional Photos: Photos of you, your team, and your actual centre build a human connection. People buy from people.

Honestly, fixing the website should be your first priority. With your current setup, you'll likely continue to see a very low conversion rate, which means every lead you get from Google Ads will be far more expensive than it needs to be. It's a bit like trying to fill a leaky bucket – you can keep pouring more water (ad spend) in, but you'll lose most of it through the holes (a non-optimised website).

We'll need to look at the right ad platform...

Once the website is in a better place, the next question is where to spend your advertising budget. You've started with Google Ads, which is absolutly the right call for a local service business like yours. I can't stress this enough.

The reason is simple: user intent.

When someone goes to Google and types in "therapist in Grand Rapids" or "personal trainer near me," they have a clear and immediate need. They are actively searching for a solution to their problem, right now. This is called intent-based marketing. Your ad shows up at the exact moment they are looking for you. It's the digital equivalent of someone walking down the street, looking for a counseling centre, and seeing your sign at the perfect time. You simply can't beat that for getting qualified leads.

This is very different from advertising on platforms like Facebook or Instagram. On social media, people are scrolling through photos of their friends' holidays and cat videos. They aren't in a 'buying' or 'problem-solving' mindset. Your ad interrupts their experience. While social media can work for some businesses, for urgent or considered services like yours, it's a much harder sell. You're trying to create demand, rather than capturing existing demand. It's less efficient and usually more expensive to get a solid lead.

So, my advice is to double down on Google. Specifically, I'd say you should be looking at two types of Google Ads campaigns:

1. Google Search Ads: These are the classic text ads that appear at the top of the search results. This is where you'll target those keywords people are actively searching for. It's the bread and butter of local service advertising.

2. Google Local Service Ads (LSAs): These are the "Google Guaranteed" listings that often appear right at the very top, even above the normal search ads. They are specifically for local service providers. To get on there, you have to go through a verification process with Google. The huge advantage is that you only pay per lead (a phone call or message), not per click. This can be incredibly cost-effective. It also adds a massive layer of trust, as you have Google's stamp of approval. I would definitly look into getting your business verified for this.

Sticking with Google ensures you're putting your message in front of the warmest possible audience – people who have already raised their hand and said, "I need help with this."

You probably should understand the costs...

This is the million-dollar question: what should I expect to pay for a lead? The honest answer is, it varies. A lot. It depends on your location (Grand Rapids), the competition, the specific service, and how well your campaigns are optimised. But I can give you some realistic ballparks from my experience running campaigns for other service businesses.

For most local services, you're probably looking at a cost per lead (CPL) somewhere in the range of $10 to $50. A 'lead' in this case would be a phone call or a form submission from your website.

To give you some real-world context:

• We're currently running a campaign for an HVAC company in a competitive city, and their cost per lead is around $60. It's high, but each job is worth thousands, so the return is massive.
• We've run ads for childcare services where the CPL was about $10 per tour booking.
• One of our best-performing consumer service campaigns was for a home cleaning company, and we got their CPL down to just £5 (about $6.50).

Counseling and fitness will fall somewhere in that spectrum. My gut feeling, without doing deep research on your specific market, would be to budget for a CPL of around $25-$45 to be safe. It might be lower, but it's better to be realistic.

So, what does this mean for your budget? I usually recomend a starting ad spend of at least $1,000 - $2,000 per month to get enough data and see what's working. The maths is simple:

(Number of leads you want per month) x (Estimated Cost Per Lead) = Your Monthly Ad Spend

For example, if you want 30 new leads a month and we estimate a $40 CPL, you'd need a budget of $1200. I've put a small table below to illustrate this:

Remember, this is just the ad spend. The real success of the campaign depends on how many of those leads you can convert into paying clients and what the lifetime value of that client is. But this gives you a much better framework for thinking about budget than just putting some money in and hoping for the best.

You'll need a solid campaign structure...

Okay, let's get into the nitty-gritty of the Google Ads account itself. You mentioned you set it up yourself and have zero idea how it works. That's fine, but it almost certainly means it's not structured for performance. Just letting Google's "smart" campaigns run on autopilot is a surefire way to waste money. A professional setup involves a deliberate structure designed to maximise relevance and control costs.

This is how I would approach it:

1. Conversion Tracking is Non-Negotiable: This is the most important thing. If you take nothing else from this letter, please do this. You MUST set up conversion tracking. This means placing a small piece of code on your website that tells Google Ads when someone has completed a desired action (like filling out the contact form or clicking the 'call' button). Without this, you are flying completely blind. You have no idea which keywords, ads, or audiences are actually generating leads. You're optimising for clicks, not for business results. Setting this up correctly is the first step in any account I work on.

2. A Granular Campaign Structure: Don't lump everything into one campaign. I would create separate campaigns for your two main service lines: "Counseling" and "Fitness". Why? Because the keywords, ad copy, and the type of person searching for each are different. Someone looking for a therapist has a different mindset and needs to see a different message than someone looking for a gym or personal trainer. Separating them allows you to control the budget for each service and tailor your messaging perfectly.

3. Tightly Themed Ad Groups: Within each campaign, you create Ad Groups. Each Ad Group should focus on a very specific set of related keywords. For example, in your "Counseling" campaign, you might have Ad Groups like:

• Grief Counseling
• Anxiety Therapy
• Couples Counseling
• General Therapist GR

4. Rigorous Keyword Research: You need to target the right keywords. This involves a mix of broad terms and very specific 'long-tail' terms. I've put a few ideas in a table below to show what I mean.

You also need to make extensive use of Negative Keywords. These are terms you tell Google *not* to show your ads for. For example, you'd want to add negative keywords like "free", "jobs", "training course", "online" to avoid wasting money on people who aren't looking for your paid, in-person services.

5. Compelling Ad Copy & Extensions: Your ads need to stand out. They should include the main keyword, highlight a unique benefit (e.g., "Appointments Available This Week"), and have a strong call-to-action ("Call Now for a Free Consult"). You also must use Ad Extensions. These are extra snippets of information that make your ad bigger and more useful. For you, the most important ones would be:

• Call Extensions: Puts your phone number directly in the ad. On mobile, people can just tap to call.
• Location Extensions: Shows your address and puts you on the map. Essential for a local business.
• Sitelink Extensions: Links to specific pages on your site, like "About Us" or "Our Services".

Getting this structure right is a lot of upfront work, but it creates a foundation that you can actually manage and optimise over time. It gives you the control to see what works, turn off what doesn't, and systematically improve your results.

This is the main advice I have for you:

I know that was a lot to take in. To make it simpler, I've broken down my main recommendations into an actionable plan. This is the step-by-step process I would follow if I were tasked with turning your Google Ads account into a reliable source of new clients.

Why you might want some help with this...

As you can probably tell, this is a lot more involved than just putting in your credit card and writing an ad. Doing it right is practically a full-time job, especially at the start. It requires a specific set of skills: strategic thinking, technical know-how, a bit of copywriting flair, and a lot of analytical patience.

You can absolutely learn to do all of this yourself. But you have to ask yourself if that's the best use of your time as a business owner. Your expertise is in counseling and fitness. Every hour you spend trying to decipher Google Ads is an hour you're not spending with clients or growing the other parts of your business.

Working with a professional, whether it's a freelancer or an agency, is about getting results faster and avoiding the costly mistakes that almost everyone makes when they're starting out. We've gone through this process hundreds of times for businesses across many sectors, from local services to B2B software. We've made the mistakes, we've run the tests, and we've developed a process that works. We've helped service businesses get their cost per lead down significantly, turning advertising from an expense into a predictable and profitable investment.

The goal is to get your Google Ads account to a point where it's a reliable, scalable engine for your business growth. You put a dollar in, and you know you're going to get more than a dollar's worth of business back out. Getting to that point is the real value of professional management.

I hope this detailed breakdown has been helpful and gives you a clear path forward. If you'd like to chat more about this, I'd be happy to offer you a free initial consultation. We could hop on a call, I can have a proper look inside your Google Ads account with you on a screen share, and we can discuss your specific goals in more detail. There's no obligation at all, of course. Just an opportunity to get some expert eyes on your specific situation.

Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh