Paid Ads or SEO – What is Better?

When you first turn your attention to your online digital marketing footprint it can be overwhelming and you’ll probably be feeling the pressure to choose where to spend your marketing budget – on PPC Paid Ads or on SEO. We’ve put this together to walk you through the pros and cons of both, as well as how to think about the utility of both in your forward marketing plans

There isn’t a business on earth that doesn’t come with its own plethora of acronyms and lingo – and digital marketing is no different. These are the most relevant to the current discussion so let’s unpack them a little.

Pay Per Click is a general term used to describe paid online ads because this is how online ads were charged, and still are but other metrics are now sometimes also used. The basis of this concept is that you agree on a price per click, the agency display your ad on their platforms, and at the end of an agreed period the agency will charge you for how many clicks your ad got. Now, if you agree to a higher cost per click, they’ll show your ad in better contexts, higher on lists, and to more selectively chosen viewers.

In other words – the more you pay the better the result.

Optimization of website writing, sales listings, and technical back end changes enables search engines to see what’s on your site and what you specialize in. SEO works by making sure that your potential customers can find you when they’re actually looking for you – not by chance or while scrolling through social media.

Imagine if 95% of the people who walked in to your brick and mortar store were prepped and ready to buy? Well, that’s kind of what SEO does, because the people finding your service are searching for that service.

In addition, SEO can help you build a parasocial relationship with customers before you’ve even spoken to them. Think about the following scenario – you’re looking for a nice pair of boots, they need to look nice enough to wear to work events and big meetings but high quality enough to actually wear in the day to day. You’re looking into what makes a good daily wear boot for your needs, and you come across a blog talking about how to maintain and eventually repair their shoes, you click through and see their range. The site is full of sizing information, care guides, and their manufacturing process. That brand has already communicated to you that their boots are high quality enough to be repairable – no one can re-sole a $9 knock off from a big box retailer – and that they stand by their products enough to believe you’ll be wearing them for years and years. Contrast that with scrolling past a flashing picture on social media that says 20% off.

By looking at the distinct pros and cons of Paid Ads vs. SEO, which is better starts to become apparent for your situation. Like most things in life, the right balance of choices is different for everyone – some people can work out six days a week without getting injured while some competitive athletes can only hit the gym three times a week.

Some businesses do better with paid ads while others would seem utterly untrustworthy without a solid foundation of SEO behind them. You might well buy a t-shirt or a book from a paid ad that leads to a sales website, but you’d be less likely to choose a medical practitioner or home builder without being able to find them online.

By looking at the distinct pros and cons of Paid Ads vs. SEO, which is better starts to become apparent for your situation. Like most things in life, the right balance of choices is different for everyone – some people can work out six days a week without getting injured while some competitive athletes can only hit the gym three times a week.

Some businesses do better with paid ads while others would seem utterly untrustworthy without a solid foundation of SEO behind them. You might well buy a t-shirt or a book from a paid ad that leads to a sales website, but you’d be less likely to choose a medical practitioner or home builder without being able to find them online.

Instant Gratification (sort of): paying for views is transactional, but not guaranteed. Just because you pay for visitors doesn’t mean they’ll come. Generally speaking, though, a good ad campaign can bring in more people than normal because the algorithms are smart – they target the people you tell them to.

Variability for Audience: running very different ads on various social media platforms or targeting different people is a great feature of Paid Ads. For example, you could run one ad asking first time home owners if they’re aware of the need to have their roof inspected/cleaned/repainted and at the same time remind seasoned property investors that a freshly inspected/cleaned/repainted roof can really bump the value on a property. Both of these ads can be equally as successful, so long as you get the targeting right.

The Crash: just like lifting weights and running, going all out on the most intense thing for the fastest results might work for one or two in a million but for most of us we need to start off slow with some walking and bodyweight exercises.

Paid Ads can be a little like crash dieting – you pay the money and you get the visitors; you dive head first into the complicated food rules and lose the kilos. The campaign ends and the visitors stop; the weekend comes and you just want to eat something that actually makes you feel full and drink something other than the weird tasting tea – and the water weight comes back overnight.

When you pay for your audience, you need to keep paying for their attention.

The Cost: while there certainly are affordable keywords for PPC, they’re not going to be the ones that make the biggest difference to your bottom line. Paying a few bucks per click sounds like a deal, but when you need nearly 200 clicks a day just to make conversions you’re actually spending between $5,000 and $10,000 a month as a medium sized business.

The Financial Risk of PPC: the concept of pay per click is essentially buying views – you pay a company X amount per person who sees it, so they want to get as many people as possible to click on your ad.

Which is great, so long as you set it up correctly and you’re going through a reliable agency.

There’s also the question of set up – daily budget limits, campaign length, max PPC dollar amounts, the level of targeting you do.

While clicking a button that says something like “best quality clicks only” sounds like a fantastic option it could result in you paying a hefty price per click – and we’re not talking about a couple of bucks either, we’re talking hundreds of dollars.

For example, a recent survey showed that pay per click advertising for lawyers and legal advice can run, on average, between $150 and $300 per click! If 50 people (which isn’t that many people) click your ad? That could cost you fifteen grand.

Now, imagine you set that campaign to run everywhere, and for an unlimited daily budget, and an unlimited amount of time.

Now imagine that you didn’t set your targeting well enough and half those people are teenagers looking for the latest episode of some TV show starring a lawyer – ouch.

The Reputation Risk: Google AdSense is secure but aside from Google based ‘sponsored’ search results, you’re not usually dealing directly with Alphabet. Intermediaries like MediaVine, Ezoic, and SHE Media are advertising agents who help people monetize their websites by placing AdSense ads on them – now these are pretty darn reputable as Google Certified Publishing Partners, but where there are reputable options there are always less reputable ones.

The latter of these place ads wherever they think will get clicks and their ad interfaces can be difficult to dismiss – ever seen ads with a really hard to click X button? Tried to exit an ad and been redirected to their download page because it just looks like a “close” button? These are good examples of a service that’s paid an ad company to place their ad, and have paid for your click that will never result in a conversion because you were trying to exit the ad. Not only is this a financial risk, but we’re willing to bet you’ve never thought well of those companies that feel like they’re forcing you to their pages – they feel like a scam, right?

More than that, while there is the capability to block specific URL’s from showing your ads there are a lot of websites you might not want your face, brand name, and business phone number showing up on.

High Skill Barrier to Entry: the financial and reputational risk aspects play into the high skill barrier for entry. Paid Ads are safe – when done correctly. Unfortunately, this means a lot of education and practice to make sure you’re getting it right.

Control of Content: when you’re publishing content extensively, you can see everything you’re putting out in your brand’s name.

Sustainable Customer Flow: SEO is a reliable source of potential customers because of the snowball effect – the more people find and click your link, the more people the search engines show it to.

Long Term Results: This means that instead of losing value, your old posts actually increase in value as they get older (especially if you update them regularly, you’re telling search engines ‘hey look, we’re still the best at X, see how trustworthy and reliable we are!).

Does More Than Deliver Customers: an ad says a lot about your brand, but doesn’t create a relationship with your customer. When you publish expert content you’re telling everyone who comes to your site that you know your stuff, can be trusted, and deserve loyalty even after this transaction is complete. Having great SEO content makes your site a place for them to go for information not just a one time purchase and by establishing yourself as a reliable specialist – in combination with delivering a great service or product – you create the holy grail of transactional business, the repeat customer.

Complicated to DIY: learning SEO yourself can be tempting, after all, it seems simple to write about your topic of expertise. However, optimized copy is only one side of it, there’s back end and technical SEO to consider, as well as the UX/UI aspects which can require graphic design and more.

Upfront Cost of Long Term Investment: paying someone for something you can’t immediately see feels frustrating, and many people are put off by the idea.

Lagging Results: the fact that SEO is a long term approach means that the result can feel detached from the action. Publishing a page now won’t have an immediate overall boost, it will take a little while.

Learn more about hiring an SEO company for your business, why SEO costs what it does, and how long SEO can take to work in our education posts.

We’re not saying there’s no place for paid ads – targeted advertising can be a great compliment to a digital marketing plan, especially in high traffic periods like EOFY, Christmas, and industry specific busy periods. However, just like generous slices of cheesecake and staying out until closing, they should be applied with care and consideration – eating a ¼ of a cheesecake for dinner and staying out until 1am everyday is never going to be a sustainable lifestyle.

Nor is relying on PPC for all your traffic.

SEO is the most reliable and sustainable way to promote your services. With intentional planning and regular maintenance, actions you take now can be serving you customers in a decade. You’ll often see SEO likened to the foundation of a house but we think it’s more like the foundation, steel structure, insulation and dry wall, and the roof of a house. PPC is more like the decorative touches that make people who wouldn’t normally look at your place go “oooh” like doing Christmas lights or putting a fountain in.

Get your digital house built right with SEO and embellish later.