Google Ads vs SEO: pros and cons

Google Ads and SEO are both methods of increasing website visibility and driving traffic to a website, but they have different advantages and disadvantages. It is important to understand this before committing to any campaigns.

Here are some pros and cons of each:

Google Ads Pros:

  • Quick results: Google Ads allows businesses to start seeing results quickly, as ads can be set up and running within a matter of minutes.
  • Targeted advertising: Google Ads allows businesses to target specific demographics, locations, and keywords, making it possible to reach a highly targeted audience.
  • Measurable results: Google Ads provides detailed data and analytics, making it easy to measure the performance of ads and make adjustments as needed.
  • Flexibility: Google Ads allows businesses to adjust their budget, targeting, and ad copy at any time, making it possible to quickly respond to changes in the market.

Google Ads Cons:

  • Cost: Google Ads can be expensive, especially for competitive keywords and industries.
  • Limited visibility: Google Ads ads are only shown to people who are actively searching for specific keywords, which means that businesses may not be reaching as many potential customers as they could with SEO.
  • Ad fatigue: Ads can become less effective over time as users become used to seeing them and start to ignore them.

SEO Pros:

  • Long-term results: SEO can take longer to see results, but the benefits are longer-lasting than those of Google Ads.
  • Greater visibility: SEO allows businesses to reach a wider audience by increasing visibility in organic search results, which are not limited to people actively searching for specific keywords.
  • Cost-effective: SEO is generally less expensive than Google Ads, especially in the long-term.
  • Branding: SEO can help improve a website’s branding by increasing visibility and making it easier for people to find the website.

SEO Cons:

  • Long-term results: SEO can take longer to see results than Google Ads, which can make it difficult for businesses to know if their efforts are paying off.
  • Constant updates: SEO is a constantly changing field, which means that businesses need to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices in order to see results.
  • Limited control: With SEO, businesses have less control over who sees their website and when, which can make it more difficult to target specific demographics or locations.

Overall, both Google Ads and SEO have their own advantages and disadvantages and it’s good to consider the goals, budget and target audience to decide which one is more suitable for your business.

Google Ads is more suitable for businesses that want quick results and have a larger budget, while SEO is more suitable for businesses that want to see long-term results and have a smaller budget. They can be used together for aggressive campaigns in competitive markets.

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Craig Wilson is the founder of Sticky. He has been in the business of growing businesses for over 25 years. If you’d like to speak with Craig to discuss how Sticky might be able to help your business get better results, just book a call here.

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