A Newcomer’s Guide To Google Ads Vs SEO

First of all, congrats on your online endeavours be it for your business or your blog (which is, in a way, a business too). It’s an exciting journey that can be overwhelming at times, but the rewards are huge if done right.

When diving into the online world, promoting yourself to be seen by those who matter makes a difference. People you want engaging in your content are known as your audience.

To kickstart your online presence, you can take on an SEO or Google Ads approach, or even both simultaneously.

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What is Google Ads?

This is Google’s form of advertising on sites signed up for the Google Adsense program. What this means for you, as a Google Ads advertiser, is that you can only advertise on Google’s affiliated websites and platforms.

These include Google’s Search Results Page, Gmail, YouTube, Hangouts, Google Maps, Wallets, and affiliated third party websites.

As with all advertising, Google Ads is a paid service where you engage in an agreement with Google to pay them X dollars for each click received from your Google ad. The advantage of using Google Ads is you are immediately seen by your audience. This makes it a fast and easy way to land a sale on your website (if it converts well).

Many businesses use Google Ads as a short term way to generate leads while the long term SEO efforts kick in. For example, an effective Google Ads structure works like this:

Your Google Ad gets a Click
The User Lands on a Sales Page on Your Website
A Pop Up Subscription Discount is Offered
User Subscribes for the Discount Code
You Email the Discount Code
Customer Makes a Purchase
You Have Their Email for Future Sales Potential

And the best part is, it’s achievable within minutes of having your Google Ad campaign live.

What is SEO?

Known as Search Engine Optimisation, SEO is a digital marketing strategy that website owners use to position their websites in the most favourable manner for Google and other search engines to rank them in the search results.

When people refer to SEO, they mean organic listings that are not paid to be obtained and therefore are natural.

What’s the SEO strategy?

Well, it’s rather technical with strategies covering both SEO on your website (on-page SEO) and SEO outside of your website (off-page SEO).

By ensuring you implement the SEO best practices (that comprise over 200 rules based on the Google Algorithm), you put your site one step ahead in outranking your competitors.

SEO is a long term investment, and success is based on your on-page and off-page efforts, the competitiveness of your industry, and much more.

The reason why SEO is extremely popular is due to how once you are on Page 1 of Google, your website will find it easier to stay at the top position for longer, thus dramatically increasing website traffic, leads, and sales. Theoretically, SEO can be free, which is why it is so strongly desired by website owners as a digital marketing strategy.

Working on specific keywords that are popular in your industry will mean that you also indirectly target other related keywords that are longer.

The Difference Between SEO & Google Ads

Before jumping the gun, here are a few things to consider:

You need investment capital for Google Ads, as it’s a paid service. With SEO, every click on your listing is free.
Google Ads can appear at the top or bottom of a Google search results page. If your ad appears at these prime spots, your visibility increases massively. SEO, on the other hand, can prove to be difficult to rank your website among the top positions.
It’s easier to calculate your return on investment (ROI) with Google Ads than with SEO. With Google Ads, you can place conversion trackers that tell you how much was spent to get a lead and how much revenue that lead created. With SEO, it’s hard to account direct ROI when the website visits are organic.
Google Ads relies on spending money. Once you stop spending, your traffic will stop too. On the contrary, a good SEO strategy will continue to benefit from organic traffic as long as you remain on Google.
You can target several keywords or phrases with Google Ads, whereas with SEO, it’s more lucrative to focus on a few keywords for better results.
The rewards of Google Ads is more immediate with great campaigns being built, resulting in traffic and leads to your website at an instance. With SEO, time is not your friend, and you will need plenty of it to work your way higher up the rankings.

So which is better?

The answer depends entirely on your business strategy. Are you looking for quick results and have the capital to invest? Then Google Ads may be for you.

Prefer to become an authority in your industry? SEO is the way to go.

In both cases, there is a relatively steep learning curve. With Google Ads, you will need to learn how to set up campaigns and perform keyword and audience research to find the most lucrative markets to target. You will also need to perform testing on different variations of your ad to see which ones perform better.

With SEO, you will need to learn the right things to implement on your website and how to network with other authorities within your industry.

Ultimately, it’s important to understand your business situation, budget, and your expectations and achievement targets.