By Rajeena Hakkim, Freelance Digital Marketer in Hounslow
As a freelance digital marketer in Hounslow, I like to practise what I preach, so a few days ago, I published a small test Google Ads campaign for my own business. No clients involved, just me, a modest budget, and a chance to see what actually happens when a brand new search campaign goes live. I called it “Hounslow SEO Test,” and I want to walk you through exactly what happened, warts and all, because I think it’s more useful to show the real process than to pretend everything goes smoothly the first time.
The Problem: Zero Clicks, Zero Impressions
Within a day of approval, my campaign overview was showing something every advertiser dreads: 0 clicks, 0 impressions, £0.00 spent. The ad had been approved. It was technically “live.” But nothing was happening.
Digging into the account diagnostics, I found the reason. Google was telling me plainly that my ad group didn’t have enough keyword coverage to actually start showing up in searches. This warning is called “Missing enough relevant keywords.”
At the same time, a second warning appeared, saying my “Ad strength is poor.” Two separate issues, both blocking performance before it even had a chance to start.
Fixing the Keywords
My first instinct was to add a long list of keywords quickly. But going through them one by one, I noticed something important. Several of the phrases I’d originally chosen, very specific, multi word combinations, came back as “Not eligible, low search volume.” Nobody was actually searching those exact phrases, so Google simply wouldn’t serve ads against them.
The keywords that did clear as “Eligible” were shorter, more natural phrases, the kind of thing an actual person searching on their phone would type. Things like “freelance digital marketer near me” or “seo consultant near me” performed far better than longer, over specific combinations.
I also caught myself almost adding “local SEO agency” to the list, before realising that’s not accurate. I’m not running an agency. I’m a freelancer working directly with small businesses, one to one. It would have been an easy keyword to add, and it would have quietly misrepresented what I actually do. I dropped it and replaced it with language that matches my real positioning: consultant, freelancer, specialist, not agency.
Lesson: keyword research isn’t just about volume. It’s about accuracy. A keyword that technically drives traffic but attracts the wrong expectations isn’t a win.
Fixing Ad Strength
The second warning took longer to resolve. Google’s Ad Strength meter wants variety: multiple unique headlines (up to 15), multiple unique descriptions (up to 4), and ideally sitelinks pointing to different parts of your site.
Going through my own ad copy line by line, I found a phrase I’d written early on that no longer reflected how I wanted to present myself. It read: “Learning digital marketer offering honest, beginner friendly SEO support.” At the time it felt humble and approachable. Looking at it fresh, it undersold my actual capability. It made me sound like a trainee rather than someone a business could confidently pay for results.
I rewrote it to something closer to the truth: personalised, one to one support from someone who does the work themselves, with no agency overhead inflating the cost.
I also added sitelinks, About, FAQ, Contact, and this Blog, using the section anchors already built into my own homepage, rather than creating placeholder pages just to tick a box.
By the end of this process, Ad Strength moved from Poor to Average, and is still climbing as the new keywords and headlines settle in.
What This Actually Demonstrates
I’m sharing this not because the campaign is finished or perfect. It isn’t. As of writing, it’s still under review, still gathering its first real impressions. But that’s exactly the point.
If you’re a small business owner in Hounslow, or anywhere in West London, wondering whether it’s worth running Google Ads, or whether your own campaign is quietly stuck the way mine was: these warnings are common, they’re fixable, and understanding why they happen matters more than blindly accepting Google’s automated suggestions.
I’ll update this post once real performance data comes in, clicks, cost per click, and hopefully a conversion or two. For now, consider this an honest, unfiltered look at what the first few days of a real campaign actually involve.
Want a second pair of eyes on your own Google Ads account? As a freelance digital marketer in Hounslow, I offer straightforward, one to one local SEO support for small businesses, no agency mark up, just direct, hands on help.