Digital Marketing

Google Ads or SEO: Where a Small Business Should Actually Spend First

Most will refuse to tell you this since it’s better to sell you both but the truth of the matter is that it depends entirely on how quickly you need results rather than which is better.

Google Ads places your website in front of users actively searching for it at this very minute. Budgets are set up, campaigns created and launched, and results start rolling in within days. What you give up is the fact that it ends when the spending stops. Nothing built will be left behind. In case the business requires bookings right away – there is an opening of a new branch, extra capacity needs filling, there’s only a certain period during which a particular service can be provided – Google Ads is the choice to make despite the fact that all clicks cost money.

It is the opposite for SEO. Slow at its beginning, usually taking three to six months until results show up, it costs money and effort in the form of producing quality content. But once a page appears in search results, it starts to bring visitors without any additional payments. And it adds up over the course of several months or even years since you don’t pay for the same traffic more than once.

What most small businesses fail to do is choose one of them based on what competitors are doing, not their financial capabilities.

So, a good middle approach would be running a small targeted ads campaign for highest intent keywords – those in which the customer is already ready to buy something, not just browse – and creating SEO content for other keywords in parallel.

Whichever you choose, don’t run either one without knowing what a new customer is actually worth to you. Without that number, you can’t tell if the spend is working — you’re just guessing.

Whichever you choose, don’t run either one without knowing what a new customer is actually worth to you. Without that number, you can’t tell if the spend is working — you’re just guessing.