Yes, you can build a business website on Google Sites and send Google Ads traffic to it. It works when you sell one service, ask visitors to take one action and pick up the phone when they call. You build the site from a template in your browser, no developer needed, and publish it with one button. The tool itself is free. The only thing you are likely to pay for is your own domain.
Know the limit before you launch. The Google Sites help describes one tracking connection: a Google Analytics property ID. It does not describe a built-in lead form or a separate field for a Google Ads conversion tag, so early on your lead tracking has to be built around the phone. If you have no site at all yet, first read whether you can run Google Ads without a website, then come back here.
Short answer: who Google Sites is right for
I look at Google Sites as an advertiser, not a designer. After 19 years in advertising, I care about one thing: does the page get a person from the ad to a phone call?
For a first launch, a service business needs surprisingly little. A plumber, a dentist, an HVAC contractor, a lawyer or a tutor can get by with a single page that gets three things right:
- One service. The page uses the same words as the ad: “water heater repair in Austin,” not “home services.”
- One call to action. Call or text. Not five buttons to choose from.
- A phone that works. The number is visible on the first screen, and someone answers it during business hours.
If those three conditions are met, Google Sites covers your first month of advertising. If you need a catalog, a shopping cart, booking with a deposit or exact tracking of every lead from day one, look at another builder right away. There is a section on that below.
How to create a site in Google Sites (steps)
You need a regular Google Account and a computer: the Google Sites help on creating a site describes the steps on a computer. The same page says you can create a website for personal or business use.
- On a computer, open Google Sites.
- At the top, under “Start a new site,” select a template. More options are in the Template Gallery at the top right.
- At the top left, enter the name of your site and press Enter. I use the business name plus the city, so a visitor from the ad knows right away they landed in the right place.
- Add content. What belongs on a page built for ads is in the checklist below.
- At the top right, click Publish.
Pick the simplest template. You do not need a six-page menu. For ads, one long page works better, in this order: what you do and where, your phone number, prices or at least a “starting at” figure, photos of your work, reviews, contact details and hours.
One handy tip from the same help page. Before big edits, click More, then Make a copy, and save the entire site. If you break something, the working version is still there.
How to publish and connect your own domain
Publishing takes a few clicks, but one setting decides whether a visitor from your ad can see the site at all.
- Open the site in Google Sites and click Preview at the top. At the bottom right, you can choose a layout option.
- Click Publish and enter the web address for your site. Terms that violate the Acceptable Use Policy will not be allowed.
- Click Publish again.
- Visit the web address and make sure the site looks the way you intended.
- At the top, click Share. Next to “Published site,” select Public from the drop-down list, not Restricted, then click Save or Done.
With Restricted access, only people you added by hand can see the site. A customer clicking your ad cannot open it. On top of that, Google reviews the landing page along with the ad text, and the Google Ads help says plainly that a new webpage launching with your ad needs to be complete for the ad to be reviewed.
Without your own domain, the site lives at a long sites.google.com address. For ads and business cards, I recommend a short address with your business name. According to the Google Sites help on custom domains, the setup goes like this.
- Go to Settings, click Custom domains, then click Start setup.
- Enter your domain.
- If you are prompted to verify ownership, skip the remaining steps for now. Go to Google Search Console, click Add property, enter your domain in the Domain option (not URL prefix) and click Continue. Copy the TXT record into your domain’s DNS records and click Verify. Then go back to your site settings and try again.
- Click Next and follow the on-screen instructions for your domain registrar.
- Click Done.
A few rules from the same Google Sites help page. Only the owner of a site can connect it to a domain. Your URL must include a subdomain, like www. You can connect up to five custom domains to one site, and it may take up to 48 hours for domain changes to become visible on the internet. That is why I connect the domain at least two days before the ads go live. If you see the “Invalid DNS” error, you need to add a CNAME entry, wait 24-48 hours and try again.
No domain yet? You can buy one from any registrar or through a Google Workspace plan, where the default subscription is Business Standard. One more thing: your custom domain may stop working if you delete the site, transfer ownership to someone else or move the site into a shared drive. Do those only on purpose.
What a page built for ads needs (checklist)
I run this checklist before every launch, whatever the builder. On Google Sites, everything here is done with ordinary text and image blocks.
- The first screen answers the search. Service, city or service area, phone number as text. No slider, no slogan.
- The page matches the ad. If you advertise “AC repair,” the headline is about AC repair.
- One call to action. Call, or text one number. Every extra option splits attention.
- A phone that gets answered. Business hours next to the number. Ads charge for the click, not the call, so a missed call costs you money.
- Prices or a “starting at” range. They filter out people whose budget does not fit before they call.
- Proof. Photos of your own work, reviews with names, your address or service area, your business name.
- A page on how you handle personal data if you ask for a phone number or email. I add one to every landing page: visitors see their contact details are safe with you.
- Public access and a finished page before launch. The ad review looks at the landing page too.
- Analytics connected, with the first data already in. How to do it is in the next section.
- A phone test. Open the published address on your own smartphone, scroll to the bottom and try calling the number on the page.
- A fixed page address. Do not rename the page after launch. The reason is below.
Lead tracking: what Google Sites can and cannot do
What you can do for sure. According to the Google Sites help on Analytics, you first need an Analytics Property ID: if you don’t have an Analytics account yet, sign up for one and find your Property ID. Then, in Google Sites, click Settings in the top right corner, go to Analytics in the Settings window and enter a valid Analytics Property ID. It can take up to 24 hours for data to show up. So connect Analytics a day before your ads start, not on launch day.
Next, check what actually comes through. In GA4, select Reports from the left menu, click Realtime, and visit your site from your phone. The report shows event counts by event name, so you will see which actions the site sends. If one of them means a lead, mark it as a key event: in Admin, under Data display, click Events and click the star next to it. If no event like that shows up, your lead tracking stays on the phone. To link GA4 to Google Ads, you need to be an administrator or editor of the Analytics property, and your Google account needs administrative access in Google Ads. Once GA4 is linked to Google Ads (Admin, Product links, Google Ads links), you can create a Google Ads conversion from that key event. How to read these reports without getting lost in menus is covered in my guide on how to use Google Analytics 4.
What the Google Sites help does not describe: a built-in lead form, a field for a Google Ads conversion tag, or a Google Tag Manager connection. Full tag-based tracking is usually set up through Tag Manager, as in the guide to installing Google Analytics 4 with Tag Manager. That guide needs a site where you can add the container code. I did not find such a step in the Google Sites help, so I will not promise it is there.
What I do in practice while a business is on Google Sites. I get a separate phone number used only for ads. Everyone who calls gets asked how they found the business, and the answer goes into a simple spreadsheet. After a month you can see how many calls the ads brought, without a single tag. Crude, but honest.
Two traps from the Sites help. First, publishing a custom path to a page or renaming a page creates a new URL and might affect tracking. Your ad would still point to the old address, so after any address change, update the final URL in your ads. Second, if visitors reject tracking cookies, the visit data might be inaccurate and undercount real use. Check Analytics numbers against actual calls.
Google Sites limits for advertising (table)
This table is built only from what the Google Sites help says. “The help does not describe it” means exactly that, not “impossible.” Test your own case before launch.
| What ads need | What the Google Sites help says | What the owner should do |
|---|---|---|
| Your own domain | Yes. Up to five custom domains per site, changes visible within up to 48 hours, only the site owner can connect one. | Connect it two days before the ads start. |
| Visit statistics | Yes. Analytics Property ID in Settings, data within up to 24 hours. | Connect a day before launch and check the Realtime report. |
| Google Ads conversion tag, Tag Manager | No separate field described. | Conversion from a GA4 key event, or count calls by hand. |
| Lead form | No built-in form described. | Lean on phone and text. If a multi-field form is a must, pick another builder. |
| Stable page address | Renaming a page or a custom path creates a new URL. | Do not rename after launch. If you did, update the link in your ads. |
| Data accuracy | Rejected cookies might make visit data inaccurate. | Check Analytics against calls. |
| Page access | Restricted shows the site only to people you add. On a custom domain, a site not shared with the world redirects to sites.google.com. | Set it to Public. |
| Embedded services on a custom domain | Embedded Google Groups will not render properly, and features that depend on Google Account sign-in may not work. | Do not build your path to a lead on them. |
| Fonts on a custom domain | Additional third-party fonts do not work with custom URLs. | Use Google Fonts. |
If your case fits these limits (one service, one call to action, a phone that gets answered, no multi-field form), your site is ready and checked. Then the next question is no longer the builder but the ads that send people to it: which searches to pay for, how to write an ad that matches this page and how much to spend at the start. There is a walkthrough in how to set up Google Ads, and the step-by-step version is in my book on Google Ads for business owners.
My e-book “19 Google Ads Secrets”: how to get the most out of Google Ads without draining your budget, drawn from real campaigns and tests.
See the book →When to move to another website builder
For me, Google Sites is a launch pad, not a forever home. Moving makes sense once you see at least one of these signals:
- the ads already bring calls, and you want the cost of every lead instead of asking customers;
- the business needs a form with fields: date, car model, a photo of the damage;
- you sell products with a catalog, a cart and checkout on the site;
- you now run several services with separate campaigns, and each one needs its own page with its own tracking.
My practical threshold: once you decide the ads work and the budget will grow, move the page somewhere you can install tags. Text and photos carry over as is, and be sure to put the new address into your ads.
When this does not apply
- An online store. The Google Sites help says nothing about a cart or checkout. For a catalog, use an ecommerce platform.
- Sales that run through booking a time slot or a deposit. When a lead takes several fields, a phone number is not enough, and the Sites help does not describe such a form.
- Nobody answers the phone. If the phone is off in the evening and on weekends, you pay for clicks nobody handles. No builder can fix that.
- You need the exact cost per lead from day one. Without a conversion tag and without a lead event in GA4, you see clicks in Google Ads and count calls in a spreadsheet. You will not get cost per lead from the ad account on day one.
- The page breaks Google Ads policies. The review looks at the landing page, and the ad can be disapproved no matter what the site is built on.
Questions and answers
Is Google Sites really free for a small business?
Yes, the site itself at a sites.google.com address costs nothing. The money goes to your own domain: you buy it from a registrar or through a Google Workspace plan, where the default subscription is Business Standard.
Do I have to connect my own domain before running ads?
The Google Ads help on ad review talks about the content of the landing page and has no “own domain only” rule. I still recommend a domain: a short address with your business name earns more trust in the ad and on a business card.
How long until everything works?
Three timelines from Google’s help pages. Domain changes may take up to 48 hours to become visible. Analytics data can take up to 24 hours to show up. Most ads are reviewed within one business day, but some reviews take longer. So the plan is: domain two days before launch, Analytics one day before, and if you need ads running by a particular date, submit them several days in advance.
What happens if I rename the page after launch?
It gets a new URL, which might affect tracking in Analytics. The link in your ad will still point to the old address. If a rename is unavoidable, update the final URL in Google Ads right away and test the page from your phone.