PPC or SEO: which to pay for first, and when a business should run both

Pay for PPC first when you need enquiries this month and the sums work at your sector's cost per click; pay for SEO first when the searches you want are winnable organically and you can wait three to six months for them. Most businesses that can afford both should run both, because the ads tell the SEO which searches actually convert, and the SEO gives the ads a faster, better page to land on, which lowers what they cost. We do both, and we tell clients which to start with from their numbers rather than from what we would rather sell.

The comparison, without the sales pitch

The tap and the reservoir

Google Ads is a tap. Turn it on and clicks arrive within hours; turn it off and they stop within hours. Nothing accumulates except knowledge: what people search for, which searches convert, what a click costs in your sector. SEO is a reservoir. Nothing arrives for a while, then it fills, and once it is full it keeps supplying enquiries at no cost per click, and drains only slowly if you stop. Businesses go wrong by expecting the tap to fill the reservoir, or the reservoir to work like a tap.

When PPC should come first

• You need enquiries this month: a new business, a new service, a quiet quarter, a launch with a date.
• The cost per click in your sector, divided by a realistic conversion rate, comes in below what an enquiry is worth to you. This is the sum in our guide to how much to spend.
• You do not yet know which searches produce customers, and a month of Search Terms data will tell you before you commit to months of SEO on the wrong pages.
• The organic results for your searches are owned by directories, national chains or businesses with hundreds of reviews, and displacing them would take a year you do not have.
• You sell products with a feed, where Shopping ads show a picture and a price in the results before any organic listing appears.

When SEO should come first

• The searches you want are local and the map pack is winnable: a Google Business Profile done properly can move within weeks and costs nothing per click.
• A click in your sector costs more than the margin allows. Solicitors and some finance and insurance searches sit here; the organic click is the only affordable one.
• You have time. Three to six months before judging, longer in a competitive city.
• Your website cannot convert a paid click yet. Sending ads to a slow, vague site pays for the site's faults by the click; fixing the site first is SEO work and it makes the ads cheaper later.
• Your budget is small enough that it would buy a few dozen clicks a month, which is too few to learn from, but enough to build one good page every month.

How they feed each other

1. The Search Terms report is the best keyword research a business can buy. Searches that convert in the ads are the searches the SEO pages should be written for, with real evidence instead of a volume estimate.
2. SEO landing pages are faster and more specific than most ad landing pages, and landing page experience is a third of Quality Score. A page built to rank often halves the cost per click of the ad pointing at it.
3. Being in the map pack and in the ads at once takes two of the first four things a phone shows. Local Services Ads, where they exist for the trade, make it three.
4. Ads can cover the months while the organic pages settle, then be reduced on the searches the pages have won, with the budget moved to searches the pages have not.
5. Brand searches tell you the SEO is working. When people search your name, the organic result is free and the ad is only insurance against a competitor bidding on it.

The cost logic, without prices

The honest comparison is cost per enquiry over a year, not cost per month. Ads cost a management fee plus a click for every enquiry, every month, and the cost per enquiry falls as the account is cleaned and then flattens. SEO costs a fee every month with almost no enquiries for the first few, then enquiries at a falling cost per enquiry as the pages win, and the cost keeps falling as long as the work continues. Over a year, in a winnable market, SEO usually produces the cheaper enquiry; over the first quarter, PPC produces the only enquiry. Which matters more depends on whether you can afford to wait.

A decision in five questions

1. Do you need enquiries in the next thirty days? If yes, PPC first, as long as the next question is also yes.
2. Does the cost per click divided by a realistic conversion rate come in below what an enquiry is worth? If no, SEO first, whatever the urgency.
3. Can your site convert a paid click today: fast on a phone, a page per service, a number that taps? If no, fix that first; it is SEO work and it makes the ads cheaper.
4. Is the map pack winnable for your searches? If yes, the profile work starts now regardless, because it is cheap and fast.
5. Can you fund both for six months? If yes, run both, and let the Search Terms report decide what the SEO writes next.

Whoever you ask this question will tend to recommend the thing they sell. We sell both, which is not a guarantee of neutrality, but it does mean the answer in our reply comes from your cost per click and your site rather than from which invoice we would rather send.