SEO vs Paid Google Ads, Which is Better | EP 512

SEO vs Paid Google Ads, Which is Better

1. SEO’s a very longterm play01:10
2. With paid ads you have results right away, but that’s more a short term 01:50
3. If you’re brand new, and you don’t have your SEO, you need to do both. 02:11

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 David: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, brought to you by WP Gears. I’m David Blackman.

00:35 Tim: And I’m Tim Strifler.

00:37 David: Today, we’re going to talk about SEO versus paid Google Ads, which is better? Let me step back and say, organic search, not just SEO, because that’s kind of important in this specific topic, how people find you, whether they’re finding you through organically searching in search engines, which equals SEO, or whether you’re creating paid advertisements to drive traffic to your website.

01:08 David: So, Tim, which one’s better?

01:10 Tim: Yeah. My answer is one of those answers where you’re like, “Okay, well that’s not really an answer.” Because I’m going to say both/it depends. The reason I’m saying that is, I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other. I guess you could say SEO if you rank at the top of page one for all of the most competitive keywords in your niche, then yes, that’s better. Because longterm, you don’t have to be paying for that traffic. It’s going to cost you time and money to create the necessary content and do the research and all of that. It’s going to take you a long time to get those results with SEO. So SEO’s a very longterm play.

01:50 Tim: Where paid ads, you can get that going right away. Obviously it takes time to optimize, but that’s more a short term. But then, they can also work together really well. So I guess answering which is better, not necessarily one versus the other, both, depends on where you’re at in your business. So it’s one of those answers that’s not really an answer.

02:11 David: I love the answer. I think there is an answer. I think if you’re brand new, and you don’t have your SEO, your organic search built up yet, I think you need to do both. I don’t think it is a either or, I think it’s a both.

02:26 Tim: Yeah.

02:27 David: I think you start producing content immediately to try to get your authority ranking with Google, so that you can, 12 to 18 months from that point, start dialing in your organic search and getting traffic from that. In the meantime, if you want to … I mean, you can wait and be patient and just wait until your organic search visibility is there. There’s nothing wrong with that. We did that when we were building aspengrovestudios.com, we didn’t run paid ads. We just started producing content and eventually, after about a year, year-and-a-half out, Google started to see us as an authority in our niche, which, at the time, was divi, divi plug-ins and themes and products and stuff. So you can go that route, forego the paid route and just do it.

03:22 David: Like Tim said, it just depends on what your needs are. Because if it were me and having the information I know today, I would do both. I’d start producing content and I would start doing PPCs in the meantime, until that organic search was there. And then I’d probably tail off on the PCC, unless I’m getting a good, positive return on it.

03:46 David: Did I say the same thing you said, Tim?

03:49 Tim: I mean, there might have been some overlap, but you definitely brought up stuff that I didn’t bring up.

03:54 Tim: One thing I do want to mention when doing both, if you get to the point where you do have really good rankings in SEO, you want to make sure that you’re not … What’s the word I’m looking for?

04:07 David: Yeah, hijacking your own-

04:09 Tim: Cannibalizing-

04:10 David: Yeah, cannibalizing or hijacking your own traffic, yeah, absolutely.

04:13 Tim: Exactly. Because then, it’s like you’re basically, if you’re the top listing and then you’re paying to be the paid ad even above that, well then, you’re going to have people clicking on that paid ad when, if that wasn’t there, they’d just pick on the top one, which was you. So you have to monitor that and so forth. But yeah, I definitely agree with what David was saying.

04:33 David: All right. Tomorrow, we’ve got another great topic for you. Be sure to tune in. Tim, until tomorrow. We’ll see you then. Take care. Bye bye.