Article · SEO

SEO or Google Ads? How to choose, and when to do both

Written by

Published 1 November 2026

The question “SEO or Google Ads?” is a bit like asking “should I buy food or cook food?”. One gives you a result tonight. The other gets cheaper over time. Most businesses need both, but not equally and not all at once.

The difference in short

	SEO	Google Ads
Time to results	Months	Days
Cost per visit	None directly, but it takes work	You pay for every click
If you stop	The effect lingers for a while	Traffic stops immediately
Control	Medium. Google decides.	High. You choose words, budget and place.
Best for	Long-term traffic	Quick tests, campaigns, seasons

When Google Ads is the right first step

You are new and need enquiries now.
You want to test whether an offer sells before you build pages.
You have a campaign with an end date.
The keyword is so competitive that SEO would take years.

When SEO is the right first step

You have time, and patience.
Customers search a lot for questions you can answer well.
You want to lower the cost per enquiry over time.
You already have a site that can be improved.

How they help each other

This is what is most often missed.

Ads show what converts. A keyword that brings many purchases in Ads is a good candidate for SEO.
SEO gives you free data. Search Console shows keywords you had not thought of. They can become ad groups.
Both in the same results page. When you appear both as an ad and organically, you take up more space and are harder to miss. Whether that brings more clicks in total varies. It depends on the keyword and who else shows up, so test instead of assuming.
Testing headlines. Ad copy with a high click rate can be tried out as meta titles.

What does it really cost?

Compare cost per enquiry, not cost per click. A cheap click that never becomes a customer is expensive.

Ads: ad spend plus fee, divided by the number of enquiries.
SEO: fee plus the cost of content, divided by the number of enquiries from organic search.

A worked example with made-up numbers. Ads: €2,000 in clicks and €800 in fees give 28 enquiries, so €100 per enquiry. SEO: €1,500 a month gives perhaps 5 enquiries in the first months, so €300 each. After a year it could be 30 enquiries, so €50 each. SEO is more expensive at the start and cheaper later. Your own numbers decide.

Does this apply locally?

Yes, but there is a third track. If you are a local business, you also appear on the map through Google Business Profile. It costs nothing in clicks. Start there, and read about local SEO.

Common mistakes

Cutting Ads because SEO “will take over”. SEO takes time. You lose enquiries in the meantime.
Believing that good organic CTR lowers your click price. Quality Score in Ads rests on the ad’s expected CTR, ad relevance and the landing page. A good page helps. Organic CTR does not do so directly.
Paying for searches you already win. If you advertise on your own name, you may pay for clicks you would have got anyway. Pause it for a period, or run the test in one area, and compare total clicks. Sometimes the ad is worth the money, sometimes not.
Expecting SEO results in two weeks. It cannot be done. Sorry.
Running both without shared measurement. Then you do not know what delivered what.

How I usually suggest doing it

Measure first. Without the right tracking, everything is guesswork.
Start Ads on the keywords that bring business.
Build SEO in parallel on the same themes.
After six to twelve months: move budget to where the cost per enquiry is lowest.

Want help choosing? Get in touch. Also read Google Ads or AdWords if the names are confusing.

Ready to take the next step?

Tell me where your digital strategy stands today and I will get back to you.

Talk to Simon →