Service
Google Ads in Portsmouth: a dense city makes clicks dear, so buy only the ones that ring
Two hundred thousand people in a few square miles means more businesses bidding for the same searches than anywhere else on the South Coast outside Southampton. That makes Google Ads a sharp tool here, not a blunt one: the right searches, the right districts, landing pages built for the click, every enquiry traced to its keyword, and the budget turned down as the free traffic takes over.
The geography
Why a radius does not work in Portsmouth
Draw a ten-mile circle around Southsea and it covers Gosport, Fareham, Havant, Hayling Island and the top of the Isle of Wight, most of it water or places you do not serve. Every account we run here targets named places instead, and excludes the ones the radius would have paid for.
Targeted by name
- Portsmouth and the districts you serve: Southsea, Fratton, North End, Copnor, Cosham, Drayton
- Gosport, Fareham, Havant, Waterlooville: each only if you go there, each its own campaign so the budget is visible
- Set to people in or regularly in the place, never “interested in”
Excluded
- The Isle of Wight, unless you cross the Solent for work
- Southampton and Chichester, unless they are genuinely yours
- The naval base and the ferry port as search origins for domestic trades: people passing through, not customers
Negative keywords
The list every Portsmouth account starts with
Half the waste in the accounts we take over is clicks from people who were never customers: job seekers from the university and the dockyard, people in another city, people looking for free advice. This list goes in on day one and grows from the search terms report every week.
Starter negative list
- jobs
- vacancies
- salary
- apprenticeship
- course
- training
- free
- diy
- how to
- what is
- meaning
- wholesale
- used
- second hand
- gumtree
- marketplace
- cheap
- reviews of
- complaints
- southampton
- brighton
- isle of wight
Then the trade-specific ones: for a marine business, “for sale”, “boat jumble”; for a restaurant, “recipe”, “menu ideas”; for a solicitor, “free advice”, “legal aid” unless you offer it.
Which searches
Worth paying for in Portsmouth, and not
| Search | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Emergency plumber Southsea | Yes | Urgent, decided in a minute, the map is crowded and the ad sits above it. |
| Boat engine repair Portsmouth | Yes | High value, seasonal, few pages rank for it yet. |
| Restaurants Southsea | Rarely | Browsing; the map and the review sites take the click. Ads pay only for a specific offer or a booking page. |
| Best dentist Portsmouth | No | Comparison search; a page and reviews win it, an ad rarely does. |
| Your business name | No | You rank for it already. Paying is paying Google for your own customers. |
| Kitchen fitters Fareham | Only if you go | Its own campaign, its own budget, its own landing page. |
Questions Portsmouth businesses ask us
Is Google Ads worth it in Portsmouth?
For urgent, high-value searches, yes: emergency plumber, locksmith, boiler repair, emergency dentist, van hire, boat recovery. Clicks cost more here than in most of Hampshire because the city is dense and several firms bid. For browsing searches it burns money, and we say so.
How do you handle the water?
Carefully. A ten-mile radius from Southsea covers the Isle of Wight, Gosport, Fareham and Hayling. We target the districts and towns you actually serve as named locations, set to "people in or regularly in", and exclude the island unless you really cross the Solent.
How much should I spend?
Enough for about ten clicks a day for a month so the numbers mean something; for most Portsmouth trades that is £400 to £800 a month of click spend plus management. We tell you the figure for your searches before you commit, from Google's own estimates.
Do you take a percentage of my spend?
No. Management is a flat fee on the Multi-area tier or quoted separately; click spend is paid to Google directly and never marked up.
Where do the clicks land?
On a page built for that search, not the home page. Someone searching "emergency plumber Southsea" lands on a Southsea emergency page with the number and the form above the fold. Half the accounts we take over send every click to the home page and pay for it.
How do I know it is working?
Every call from an ad and every form send is tracked to the search that caused it. You see cost per enquiry, not clicks, in the monthly report. If it is not paying by the second month, we say so and stop.
Find out what a click in your trade costs in Portsmouth
Send us your trade and your district. The audit includes Google's own cost estimates for your searches and whether ads are worth it before the SEO settles.