Google Ads vs SEO
Let’s just say first off, there is no best or worst here. SEO and Google Ads focus on different zones of the search results page. Check out the information below and decide for yourself what works best for your industry, website, and budget.
Return on Investment, or ROI
From a certain angle, Google Ads could seem like the cheaper choice, some of our clients only pay about 100€ per month on their Google Ad campaigns. Whereas on the other hand, others invest up to 1500€ per month, without even a second thought on their Ad campaigns just to try and get a few sales. The whole system is based on an auction. Everything depends on how much your competition is willing to pay per click.
Can anyone justify paying these amounts of money on publicity? Of course you can, but only with the support of the detailed reports from Máxima Web and that’s because this is responsible accountable advertising! In short, you need to take into account the bid of cost-per-click you risk in your calculation of the cost per sale, and that will make it easy to see if it is worth it or not.
Calculating the ROI on your SEO campaign is a little more complicated since the results of the work done will only be visible after weeks or maybe even months. Like when you start a new healthy lifestyle, the changes might not be evident in the first few days but in a few weeks, the benefits will be clear. This doesn't need to be something negative though, quite the contrary; a good SEO campaign will continue to bring you visitors, year after year. After a few months of your initial investment, you will start seeing a beautiful curve in your ROI. We have found that six months is enough to see a return on your investment, with your chart on return rising from then onwards. Of course, some industries are more competitive than others, with very little variation in keywords, and in those cases, we find a little more time is needed to yield the fruits of the SEO campaign. However, most of our clients with existing websites start seeing a rise in sales in the first months of the campaign. Have a look at our page "How long should I pay for SEO?" for more info on the matter.
Reports
We at Máxima Web will send you a monthly report with graphs and analysis of your results.
Of course, to make a good decision on which campaign is performing better, you will also need our monthly SEO report. That report is based on various sources, Google Analytics being the primary source.
These reports allow us to show you what type of visitor has bought products or services from your website, whether someone clicked on one of your Ads or was a visitor through an organic search, in other words, your SEO campaign. That will give you all the information you need to make decisions about your marketing budget.
The area where Google Ads appear is marked in red, SEO in green.
In some niche businesses, Google Ads are a necessity, even so, a good SEO will bring you long term results without having to spend a lot of time on it.
What do we click?
A lot of our clients realized, once they had reviewed our reports, that they were getting more sales through visitors of organic search, than through Google Ads. They reduced their Google Ads budget and invested more in their SEO campaign, doubling their profit and reducing their outlay. There are two important factors to remember here:
A lot of web traffic comes from long-tail searches, or searches that consist of different words or short sentences
Many people don't really trust ads, knowing someone, somewhere is paying for them and conclude that the ads are biased. So they don't click them
Don't get us wrong, Google Ads can have a huge advantage in some markets. Some of our clients don't invest in SEO at all, they only pay for a Google Ads campaign. Google Ads work best when the shopper doesn’t have time to waste, maybe they need a repair service or when what they are looking for is needed urgently, or maybe when a shopper just isn’t interested in looking for something else, they want something quick.
Long term Benefits
There are situations where the client does not take into account SEO and only goes for the Google Ads and that’s worked very well for some of our clients: even so, these clients found that as soon as they stopped the Ads campaign, visitors instantly stopped coming to their website.
You see the difference is that SEO builds up the reputation of your website and that means that any reference links to your page are permanent. Even when you stop paying for SEO, visitors will still get to your website. That’s the curve in your ROI we talked about earlier and you get that by contracting a professional SEO service.
Ads are a great option for reaching potential clients with immediate results, while you wait for the SEO to take effect. Find out how long until SEO kicks in, see the results, and then plan your marketing budget accordingly.
Maybe your client prefers Google Ads to SEO or vice versa. We’re committed to helping you find out.