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Table of content
If you have a website that you’re trying to rank in Google’s Top 10 results in order to get more traffic, you’ve probably already heard of SEO and paid ads. But here’s the thing… In the flood of information it can be hard to find your way around: Between the SEO pros and those who swear by paid ads, it’s hard to know where to turn.
Fortunately, we’ve put together this short read so that you can understand the differences between SEO and paid ads, which is better and, of course, which to choose. So, without further ado, let’s get started with our SEO vs paid ads explanation!
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What is SEO ?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. As its name suggests, SEO is the process of optimising your website using a variety of techniques in order to rank highly in search results. In other words, if your website is optimised as well as possible according to the recommendations of the search engines (like Google for example), your website should benefit from a solid position at the top of the search results.
What are paid ads?
To explain what paid ads are, we’ll use Google as a reference. Paid ads are simply ‘advertising space’ that you buy. For example, you could compare it to the billboards you see on the road or on buildings. So in terms of paid ads for online search results you’re going to buy advertising space from Google in order to promote one or more pages on your website.
You’ll specify to Google exactly which search phrases (also known as keywords) you want your web page(s) to show up for when a user searches them. Once promoted, you’ll see your web page(s) show up in the SERP (search engine results page) whenever users search for your desired keywords, and you’ll pay Google a fee per click on your advertisement.
This method of paid advertising is called Pay Per Click or (PPC). On Google, websites that have purchased advertising space are identified by the word ‘sponsored’ or ‘ad’.
SEO vs Paid Ads: what are the differences?
As you might expect, there are differences between SEO and paid advertising. To understand them properly, we’re going to compare SEO and paid ads on 3 points: Cost, traffic and speed of results.
Cost
- Paid ads: In general, you choose the ‘pay per click’(PPC) module for your advertising campaign. This means that you pay each time someone clicks on the link to your website. The cost per click will vary according to several factors (quality of the website, paid difficulty, competition, etc). You can expect to pay as much as $1 or $15 per click.
- SEO: SEO is more profitable in the long term as you pay nothing when a visitor clicks on the link to your website. However you will need to invest time in order to optimise your website for search engines, and/or hire an expert or agency to do this on your behalf (typically on a monthly basis).
Traffic
- Paid ads: You’ll get traffic very quickly, as quick as 24-48 hours in most cases. However, if your advertising campaign is badly set up, i.e. you’ve choosen keywords that are not likely to attract website visitors ready to buy, you’ll end up with unqualified traffic resulting in poor ROI. In addition, as soon as you stop paying for your advertising space, you’ll lose all your traffic.
- SEO: Generating organic traffic via SEO will take longer than with paid ads. Google states anywhere from 4 to 12 months’ once you start making changes to your website for you to see the results from SEO. On the other hand, once your website starts generating traffic, you will not have to pay for the traffic to your website like you do with paid ads, because it will be organic and constant.
Speed of results
- Paid ads: With paid ads you can see your ad at the top of the search results within 24-48 hours after launching your advertising campaign. So you’ll get results fast, provided you’re prepared to pay the price (cost per click).
- SEO: SEO results take longer to appear (more or less depending on the difficulty of your niche). On the other hand, your results will be consistent, with quality, organic traffic. Your referencing will be natural, so there’s no need to pay to appear in the top search results. Provided you optimise your website properly for search engines.
SEO VS Paid ads: which one is better ?
In general you can’t really say that one is better than the other when it comes to SEO & Paid Ads (PPC). However, there are cases where it makes more sense to use one method over the other.
Let’s say, for example, that you’ve just launched your e-commerce clothing website and you want to appear in the top search results, but you’re on a very tight budget: in this case you’re going to opt for natural referencing (ranking organically) using SEO.
Second scenario: let’s take an example of a fairly well-known online clothing shop with some competition and a decent budget that can be allocated to marketing. The site already has organic traffic but the owners want to boost traffic to one of their specific clothing categories: In this case it makes sense to run a paid advertising campaign.
SEO VS Paid ads: Which one to choose?
So which one should you choose? As mentioned earlier, it all depends on your particular circumstances. It alot of cases, budget permitting, it makes most sense to run both SEO & Paid Ads campaigns simultaneously for maximum impact.
However, if you’re just starting out and have low budget, it might make more sense to start with SEO and introduce a paid advertising campaign if the need (and budget) allows.
SEO VS Paid ads: Pros & Cons
SEO Pros
- Organic traffic
- Quality, targeted audience
- More economical
- Good for a brand’s trust and credibility with users if they see the site appear in the first organic search results several times
- Long-term, sustainable growth
SEO Cons
- Slow to see results (4+ months)
- More complicated to set up than an advertising campaign
- Search engine algorithms updated frequently, which could affect your search rankings
Paid ads Pros
- Quick results
- Content at the top of the SERP page
- Possibility of targeting your audience
Paid ads Cons
- Costs can be high over the long term if you want good results
- Temporary visibility (pay to play)
- Unqualified audience if the campaign is badly set up, leading to wasted budget
Conclusion
SEO and paid advertising each have their own advantages and disadvantages. The important thing to remember, however, is that in our competitive digital world, it’s more important than ever for your business to allocate time and budget to optimising your website for search engines.
Whether you invest in to SEO or Paids ads or both, make sure you’re actively investing in your digital presence to give yourself the best chances of online success.
