SEO vs. Google Ads: Which Should You Use?

Are you plan­ning a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paign but don’t know where to start? Our in-house SEO team mem­bers are experts at devel­op­ing mar­ket­ing strate­gies that get results! We work to com­bine tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing ele­ments with dig­i­tal tools meant to increase online traf­fic, engage­ment, and conversions. 

Mar­keters and busi­ness own­ers often won­der whether SEO vs Google Ads is the most effec­tive strat­e­gy for grow­ing an online pres­ence. We’ll explore this debate and share ways to expand your brand using an SEO Ad approach. 

What is SEO? 

You’ve like­ly heard of SEO and have con­sid­ered how it can ben­e­fit your mar­ket­ing cam­paigns. The pur­pose of SEO is to opti­mize your online pres­ence so that online con­tent ranks high­er in search engines, includ­ing Google. This strat­e­gy requires the use of var­i­ous opti­miza­tion tools like key­word inte­gra­tion and link­ing. When these tech­niques are applied effec­tive­ly to a web­site, vis­i­tor traf­fic increas­es as well as con­ver­sions and sales. This is how Google deter­mines your online ranking: 

• Key­words — For your busi­ness to rank in the right search engines, you need to select rel­e­vant key­words. Google rank­ings are based on the key­words select­ed so they should be direct­ly relat­ed to the top­ics on your web­site. Using the appro­pri­ate key­words will ensure that you reach your intend­ed audience. 
• Con­tent — Google will intu­itive­ly con­nect users to high-qual­i­ty con­tent that will pro­vide rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion they are look­ing for dur­ing a search ses­sion. Long and infor­ma­tive con­tent gen­er­al­ly ranks high­er on search engines. High-qual­i­ty and lengthy con­tent will keep users on your web­site longer and increase engage­ment. This helps to com­mu­ni­cate pos­i­tive sig­nals to Google that your con­tent should be one of the first to be seen. 
• Secu­ri­ty — Since online secu­ri­ty has become a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern, encrypt­ing infor­ma­tion on your web­site with an SSL cer­tifi­cate has been a game-chang­er. Google ranks secure web­sites high­er with an SSL cer­tifi­cate than those that do not have one. 
• UX — A pos­i­tive user expe­ri­ence keeps inter­net browsers engaged. By enhanc­ing your website’s user expe­ri­ence, vis­i­tors will stay longer and improve your search engine rank­ings. Sim­ple ways to do this begin with includ­ing bul­lets and head­ings in your con­tent and adding inter­est­ing videos and images. 
• Mobile friend­ly — A grow­ing num­ber of peo­ple are find­ing busi­ness­es using mobile browsers. Imple­ment­ing a respon­sive design will allow poten­tial cus­tomers to find you on any device, includ­ing mobile. Since Google con­tin­ues to push for the use of respon­sive design while using the mobile-first index­ing sys­tem, your web­site should be mobile-friend­ly to increase your inter­net rankings. 
• Page load­ing — Have you vis­it­ed a web­site that loaded too slow and lost inter­est? Cus­tomers look­ing for your prod­uct want to reach what they need quick­ly. That means your web­site should load fast to avoid high bounce rates. Need­less to say, web­sites that load slow­ly are like­ly to rank lower. 

What is a Google Ad?

 

Also referred to as SEO Google Ads, these dig­i­tal tools are used on what is known as a pay-per-click adver­tis­ing plat­form that helps mar­keters reach their tar­get audi­ence. You’ve like­ly seen them while search­ing for an item online or using a social media plat­form. A PPC ad can appear in var­i­ous ways including: 

• Search ads — You may have noticed an SEO ad that appears at the top of search engine results pages or SERPs. While they look like an organ­ic list­ing, they usu­al­ly include the tag “ad” to dif­fer­en­ti­ate them. 
• Shop­ping ads — These SEO Google Ads appear in a carousel for­mat at the top of SERPs and include images and prices of var­i­ous products. 
• Local ser­vice ads - When search­ing for local infor­ma­tion, you may find SEO Google ads dis­play­ing local elec­tri­cians, con­trac­tors, or plumbers look­ing to attract more leads. They are sim­i­lar to shop­ping ads with the same carousel for­mat but include busi­ness infor­ma­tion as well. 

SEO vs Google: Which is the Best for Business?

If you’re con­flict­ed on whether SEO vs Google is best for your busi­ness, you should con­sid­er your busi­ness goals first. Under­stand­ing how each can be used to accom­plish busi­ness objec­tives is key to devel­op­ing effec­tive mar­ket­ing strate­gies. Here’s how each one is beneficial: 

• Google ads — For busi­ness­es look­ing to focus on gen­er­at­ing leads and sales with imme­di­ate results, Google Ads is the per­fect plat­form. This PPC solu­tion allows you to bid on ads that can put your prod­uct direct­ly in front of poten­tial cus­tomers. You only need to pay when a poten­tial cus­tomer clicks on your ad. This tool widens your tar­get audi­ence while giv­ing you the flex­i­bil­i­ty to make changes to your ads as need­ed. It is the ide­al dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tool for small busi­ness­es that are not able to rou­tine­ly make changes or updates to their SEO to reflect new busi­ness pro­mo­tions.  Although this solu­tion will not increase your organ­ic rank­ings or gen­er­ate sim­i­lar results as SEO, PPC will reach your tar­get cus­tomers at the moment they need your offering. 
• SEO — For busi­ness­es look­ing to focus on gen­er­at­ing con­sis­tent traf­fic over the long run and increas­ing brand aware­ness, SEO is per­fect. All con­tent that is includ­ed on your web­site must be descrip­tive, clear, infor­ma­tive, and robust. It should be writ­ten in easy-to-read lan­guage with the tar­get words tai­lored to your read­er. Back­links from oth­er blogs, indus­try pub­li­ca­tions, cus­tomers, col­leagues, and lead­ers in your field can also help raise your SERP rank­ings. Last­ly, small changes made to your web­site can make a big impact on web­site traf­fic and vis­i­bil­i­ty in search results. 

SEO Google Ads are the Best of Both Worlds

The top­ic of SEO vs Google Ads will sure­ly con­tin­ue to gen­er­ate heat­ed debates. As dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing experts, we rec­om­mend using a strate­gic blend of the two tools. Using both meth­ods to enhance your online pres­ence in SERPs allows you to reach your tar­get audi­ence quick­er. Here are spe­cif­ic advan­tages of incor­po­rat­ing SEO Google Ads into your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strategy: 

• Raise brand vis­i­bil­i­ty — Com­bin­ing these online tools will dou­ble the amount of search vis­i­bil­i­ty your busi­ness receives. The increase in Organ­ic results and PPC ads will ampli­fy the num­ber of chances that your tar­get audi­ence will find your busi­ness page and make a purchase. 
• Increase web­site traf­fic — When you want the odds of web­site traf­fic to sky­rock­et in your favor, SEO Google Ads will get the results you’re look­ing for. You will gen­er­ate both long and short-term web­site traf­fic quickly. 
• Use Google Ads to opti­mize SEO — SEO Adwords can increase your busi­ness expo­sure expo­nen­tial­ly. By using the same tar­get­ed key­words in both Google Ads and SEO, you’ll have the best of both worlds. When test­ing tar­get­ed key­words with Google Ads, you will find out whether they will be effec­tive in an SEO Google Ads campaign. 

SEO Adwords Strategy 

Invest­ing in both PPC and SEO tools will help you reach poten­tial cus­tomers look­ing for your prod­ucts and ser­vices online. Google Ads con­nects your busi­ness to cus­tomers imme­di­ate­ly regard­less of the size of your busi­ness. SEO is a tra­di­tion­al dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tech­nique that makes this con­nec­tion over time. Even if the opti­miza­tion takes a while, it will even­tu­al­ly get it right. 

The key to effec­tive SEO is avoid­ing the urge to trick the algo­rithm by cre­at­ing fake pages or spam­ming with the use of too many search terms in your con­tent. Includ­ing text images for titles, links, or con­tent are unrec­og­niz­able by a Google bot. These tech­niques will have the oppo­site effect on your SEO rank­ings by encour­ag­ing Google to ignore your web­site. The best way to imple­ment SEO Adwords into a dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paign is to con­sid­er easy ways for poten­tial cus­tomers to nav­i­gate and under­stand your online presence. 

We Can Help with SEO Google Ads

As an award-win­ning and inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing agency, we con­tin­ue to evolve with the use of cut­ting-edge dig­i­tal tools meant to enhance our client’s online vis­i­bil­i­ty. Our focus and com­mit­ment to high-qual­i­ty SEO Ad cam­paigns make us a leader in the dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing indus­try. We pro­vide tai­lored and com­pre­hen­sive solu­tions to busi­ness own­ers and mar­keters who are look­ing to out­source their SEO cam­paigns with these solutions: 

• Mul­ti­me­dia — We curate online expe­ri­ences by com­bin­ing social, dig­i­tal, and mobile media that con­nect your tar­get audi­ence to your prod­ucts and ser­vices. Our in-house media team con­sis­tent­ly deliv­ers high-impact cam­paigns with high-impact results. 
• SEO — As SEO Google Ads experts, we know how to dri­ve traf­fic through cre­ative design and con­ver­sion rate opti­miza­tion. We gen­er­ate pos­i­tive returns on ad spend for both B2B and B2C web­sites while prop­er­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing your brand message. 
• Web devel­op­ment — Posi­tion­ing your­self with a mobile-friend­ly web­site is the first step in build­ing a suc­cess­ful dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing cam­paign. We cre­ate cus­tomized cor­po­rate and e‑commerce websites. 

Are you ready to grow your busi­ness with dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing? Give us a call today for a free mar­ket­ing audit.