Google Ads, SEO or Both - What’s The Best Approach for You?

 

You always want your business to perform as optimally as possible and that should involve spending some time considering your advertizing and marketing goals and actions. Google Ads and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) exist for that purpose, but which option is best for you?

Improvements to SEO helps your website organically rank higher because it makes it more relevant to users, while Google Ads are paid online advertizements that you pay per click (PPC), to show an ad in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Below we will explore the fundamental differences between Google Ads PPC versus SEO.

 

Search Engine Optimization

In more detail, SEO refers to the process of improving the structure and content of your website to help it organically rank higher in search results. As we know, the higher up in the search results your website appears, the greater the visibility. SEO will help make your site more visible to people searching for products or services that your business provides via search engines - and that’s what you want, to attract more relevant people to your site. SEO is considered to be an essential digital marketing activity.

With over 200 ranking factors, there are numerous ways to improve the SEO of your web pages. Your website is crawled and indexed by a search engine, looking not only for relevant keywords, but things such as title tags, image tags, internal link structure and backlinks (links from another website to yours).

Search engines also look at the design and structure of your pages, the behavior of your visitors and their user experience. Basically, your website’s pages need to be clear, helpful, descriptive and include relevant keywords - those a user is likely to use when searching online.

There is no monetary cost to improve your website’s SEO and using this alone can positively impact your ranking. However, it does require an investment in time and resources, as it takes quite a bit of effort to get it right. It is worth noting that SEO can also take some time to show results, so it is a good choice for enhancing your online presence over a longer time period.

SEO is not always easy so engage an SEO services expert like Web Force 5 to handle this part of your business, so you can commit your time and energy to other facets of running your company.

 

Google Ads

A paid advertizing platform for promoting products and services, Google Ads offers customers a comprehensive solution to help get your ads where you want them, and that is at the top of the SERPs. On the majority of search pages, organic search results will be below the paid ads, so this is where Google Ads comes into play to assist your business further.

Google Ads is used to set up specific ads to reach a particular group of people, to promote a special deal or product and they can be altered any time. While Google Ads comes at a cost, you are in control of how much you spend, and you are only charged when users interact with your ad. Furthermore, depending on the industry you operate in and how competitive the space is, it can often lead to a positive ROI based on the increase business it drives. This platform is extremely effective at driving relevant traffic to your website by offering a range of options that can be tailored to your business goals.

Google Ads won’t improve your organic search ranking, but rather helps display your ads prominently to potential customers. In saying that, consider that even if you are organically ranking high in searches, paid advertisers may be active. For instance, there may be 3 or 4 ads placed above the organic results and this will lead to a high percentage of traffic going to those websites instead of yours. This is when having a Google Ads campaign will help get this traffic to your site rather than the competition.

Consulting with a Google Ads agency will clarify the actions that will benefit you and they can help with setting up a Google Ads account.

 

Do You Need to Use Both?

Neither SEO or Google Ads are ‘set and forget’ approaches - they both require carefully planned methodical strategies to execute against, and they also need ongoing optimization, management and reporting.

There are definitely some instances where using both SEO and Google Ads should be used together as they can complement each other. For instance, for keywords that your website doesn’t organically rank very well for, Google Ads can assist with a focused ad campaign. On the other hand, Google Ads may not be required for keywords you already rank well for.

If your goal is to increase your traffic quickly, focus on specific audiences or promote a seasonal product, Google Ads may be the best option. To improve your visibility to the masses, SEO is the way to go.

 

Monitoring Your Marketing Results

Reporting on the activity across your website, on a monthly basis at least, is critical to being able to assess and tweak your marketing activities for increased benefits. Google Ads provides reports on post-click performance metrics.

Google Analytics gives you a range of statistics and analysis tools around visitors who visit and interact with your website, providing data including session duration, bounce rate and traffic source.

Google Search Console is a service that is search engine focused to help monitor and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google search results.

To get the most out of your reporting, a marketing and SEO agency will steer you down the best path.

It is definitely worth considering both SEO and Google Ads, depending on what you want to achieve both in the short and long term. Web Force 5 has a team skilled in both SEO and Google Ads PPC services who can research, plan and execute strategies for businesses across a range of industries. Speak to a specialist consultant for a free no obligation chat and watch your business soar.