SEO earns unpaid places in Google’s results and takes months to build. PPC, pay per click, buys a place among the ads from the day the ad is approved, and it stops the moment you stop paying. Neither is better in general. A business that needs calls this week should start with PPC. A business that plans to be here in two years should build SEO. A local business that can afford both can run ads first and let SEO bring down the cost of each lead over time.
SEO and PPC side by side
| SEO | PPC (Google Ads) | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | The work: pages, technical fixes, local listings, links. Nothing goes to Google. | Every click, paid to Google, plus a fee if someone manages the account. |
| How soon it shows | Weeks to months. Google says a change can take effect within hours or need several months. | Days. Google says most ads are reviewed within one business day. |
| When you stop paying | Pages keep ranking for a time, then slip if competitors keep working. | The ads stop at once. |
| Where you appear | In the unpaid results and, for local searches, in the map results. | Above or below the search results, with a label that marks them as ads. |
| What decides your place | How useful Google judges the page to be for that search. It cannot be bought. | An auction: your bid, the quality of the ad and of the page it leads to, and other factors. |
| Control | Low. You cannot choose the day or the position. | High. You choose the searches, the area, the hours and the budget. |
| Cost over time | Mostly fixed. More visitors do not cost more. | Rises with every click. Twice the visitors cost about twice as much. |
| Best for | Searches you will want to win for years. | New businesses, offers with a date, and testing which searches bring customers. |
How each one works, by Google’s own account
Unpaid results
Google states that it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results and that it costs nothing to appear in the organic results. Its systems crawl pages, index them and choose which to show for each search. SEO is the work of making your pages the ones worth choosing: a clear page for each service, a site that loads and reads properly, a complete Google Business Profile, and mentions and links from other sites.
Paid results
Google Ads runs an auction every time someone searches. You set a bid, which is the most you are willing to pay for a click. Google weighs the bid together with the quality of your ad and landing page and several other factors to decide whether the ad shows and where. Because quality counts, Google says an advertiser with relevant keywords and ads can win a higher position at a lower price than a competitor who bids more. The actual cost of a click is often less than the maximum bid. You also set an average daily budget, and Google says that for most campaigns you will never pay more than 30.4 times that figure in a month.
Does running ads help SEO?
No. Google says plainly that advertising with it has no effect on a site’s presence in its search results. Ads help SEO in one indirect way. A month of ads shows which searches turn into calls, and those are the searches worth building pages for.
A worked budget for a local business
Take a business with $2,000 a month to spend. Every figure here is an example chosen to show how the two behave. None is a benchmark. For PPC, assume management costs $500, a click costs $10 and one click in ten becomes a lead: $1,500 buys 150 clicks and 15 leads. For SEO, assume the whole $2,000 pays for the work, and that it brings nothing for three months and then grows.
| Period | PPC: leads a month | PPC: cost per lead | SEO: leads a month | SEO: cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Months 1 to 3 | 15 | $133 | 0 | No leads yet |
| Months 4 to 6 | 15 | $133 | 5 | $400 |
| Months 7 to 12 | 15 | $133 | 15 | $133 |
| Year two | 15 | $133 | 25 | $80 |
The SEO columns are the assumption to question. In a crowded market the zero lasts longer. Where nobody competes it is shorter. The shape is what matters: PPC is a straight line, and SEO is a curve that starts below it and, if the work is good, ends above it. That is the case for running both when the budget allows. Ads carry the first months. As unpaid leads grow, the ad budget can be cut or pointed at searches the site does not rank for yet.
Local Services Ads: a third option for trades
Google sells a second kind of ad that is billed by the lead. With Local Services Ads, Google says you are charged for each valid lead you receive, not for each click, and you set an average weekly budget. Paying by the lead makes the sum easy to check against the profit on a job, which is why trades should test them beside the other two.
Our founder, Christopher Maddaloni, was an electrician before he started Advernation in 2007. Seen from the trade side the choice is simple: when the phone is quiet you need ads, and when the phone is busy you build the thing that keeps it busy.
SEO vs SEM, and organic vs paid search
The terms overlap. Search engine marketing, or SEM, is used by some people for all marketing on search engines and by others for the paid part only. Organic search means the unpaid results that SEO works on. Paid search means the ads. PPC describes how the ads are billed: per click. When an agency says SEM, ask which meaning it intends.
Google Ads vs Facebook ads
Google Ads reaches people at the moment they search for a service. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who fit a description while they are doing something else. For an emergency, or for a purchase people look up before they buy, search comes first. For a product people do not know to search for, or a business built on looks and repeat visits, social ads can do what search cannot. We manage both: see Google Ads and PPC management and social media marketing.
Which to choose
- A new business with no rankings that needs calls now: PPC first. Start SEO as soon as the budget allows.
- An established business with steady work that wants cheaper leads: SEO, with a small ad budget for the searches you do not rank for.
- An emergency trade: ads for the urgent searches, and local SEO for the map results.
- A one-time offer or an event: PPC only.
- A tight budget: one of them done properly beats both done thinly. Use the arithmetic in is SEO worth it.
Both together: two of our clients
For Different Roads to Learning we took over Google Ads, Microsoft Ads and SEO together. We rebuilt the ad campaigns around the keywords that drive sales, with negative keyword lists and location extensions. Within three months organic traffic had doubled, and so had revenue from the Google and Microsoft ads.
For Silver Gold Refinery, in the Diamond District, we built the website and ran local SEO, SEO and PPC at once. Business came in the day the website and the campaigns launched, and the site went on to reach first place for “Gold Refinery NYC”.
How long the SEO half takes is in how long does SEO take. What the ads half costs to have managed is in Google Ads management pricing. Our SEO work for city businesses is described on our SEO company in NYC page.
Not sure where your first dollar should go? Tell us your trade, your area and your monthly budget, and we will say which we would start with and why.
Questions people ask
Is SEO better than PPC?
Neither is better in general. SEO costs less per lead over years and takes months to start. PPC starts within days and costs the same for every click as long as you run it. The better one is the one that fits how soon you need work and how long you plan to keep at it.
Is PPC faster than SEO?
Yes. Google says most ads are reviewed within one business day, so an ad can be showing this week. For unpaid results, Google’s own guide says a change can take effect within hours or need several months.
Can I stop paying for ads once SEO works?
You can cut them back. Many businesses keep a small ad budget for searches where the site does not rank yet, for new services and for busy seasons. Stopping ads does not harm the unpaid results, because Google keeps the two separate.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
SEO is the work of earning unpaid places in search results. SEM, search engine marketing, is used either for all search marketing, paid and unpaid, or for the paid ads alone. Ask which meaning is intended.
Should I do SEO and PPC at the same time?
If the budget covers both properly, yes: ads bring leads while SEO builds, and the ad results show which searches are worth a page. If it does not, do one properly. A new business usually starts with ads, and an established one with SEO.