If you’ve spent any time trying to market your business online you will have heard the phrases “SEO” and “PPC” online. PPC and SEO are both strategies for driving online traffic to your website, mainly (but not exclusively) via Search Engines like Google or Bing. But what are they, how do they work, and why do you need them?
The process of improving a website’s visibility in search engines and other sources of ‘organic’ traffic. SEO is most often applied to search engines like Google, aiming to make your website show up more often and higher up the page in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).
SEO builds organic traffic over time as your site’s visibility in search engines improves. It can be a very cost-effective, long-term strategy but requires patience and dedication as results can take months to appear.
Paid advertising, particularly on search engines like Google, where you place targeted adverts for specific keywords to drive ‘paid’ traffic. PPC is digital marketing model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked, essentially buying visits to your site rather than paying to show the advert.
PPC delivers near instant visibility by placing ads right at the top of the search engine results page. It’s great for both long-term ‘always-on’ marketing and short-term promotions, but it is paid, and traffic stops when your budget runs out.
Both SEO and PPC have their place and together they can create a balanced strategy that lets you maximise your visibility right from the start, gather data about what keywords work for your business, and, most importantly, get paying customers to your website.
- Traffic: Organic vs Paid Search Results
- Timeline : Long-Term Growth vs Immediate Results
- Cost: Why SEO Isn’t Actually Free
Why Small Businesses Need Both SEO and PPC
- How SEO and PPC Work Together
- Improve ROI With Data From Both Channels
- Reduce Risk With Multiple Channels
Conclusion: SEO and PPC Work Best Together
How SEO and PPC Differ
Understanding the key differences between SEO and PPC is essential for shaping an effective marketing strategy. These two approaches work in distinct ways, each offering specific advantages and costs.
Traffic: Organic vs Paid Search Results
In online marketing we often talk about “organic” traffic, what we really mean is clicks to your website that didn’t come from an advert. SEO focuses on this organic traffic, while PPC relies on paid advertisements.
For example, if you search for “accountant in Birmingham” on Google, the first few results will likely be marked as “Sponsored” – these are PPC ads. Below them, you’ll find organic results for websites that Google rates highly. Unlike PPC, organic results can’t be purchased; they have to be earned through consistent effort and solid strategy.
SEO is all about getting those highly rated placements in search engine results so that your website is shown more often and higher on the page for relevant searches. In some ways you can think of SEO as like your “reputation” with a search engine: the more relevant, authoritative, and trusted your website, the better your ranking will be. Organic results often carry more trust for users, many people will deliberately skip over ads and choose organic listings because they view them as more reliable and relevant.
On the other hand, PPC guarantees visibility as long as you’re willing to pay for the clicks and meet the platforms quality requirements (like organic rankings, ads are also ranked). It’s a quick way to get noticed, particularly for new or lower-ranked websites who haven’t built up their SEO rankings. PPC is also often much more focused on “high intent” searches which are relevant for business – for example, someone searching for “emergency plumber near me” is likely to be someone ready to act immediately.
Timeline : Long-Term Growth vs Immediate Results
One of the biggest differences between SEO and PPC is the time needed to get results; with PPC you can start getting meaningful results almost instantly, whereas SEO is a much more long term strategy.
Once your PPC campaign is live, your ads can appear within hours, driving traffic and potential leads almost immediately.
This speed means PPC is ideal for new businesses who need to get themselves started, or for time-sensitive campaigns such as product launches or promotions.
However, that’s not to say PPC doesn’t have long term value too; most users don’t care that much whether a search engine result is an advert or not, so there’s a strong case for having always-on PPC campaigns to capture those high-intent searches.
SEO operates on a slower timeline, for most websites it takes at least 3-6 months to see noticeable improvements in rankings, and in competitive industries, it could take a year or more.
That delay is because it takes time for search engines to index your content, determine its relevance, and, crucially, for you to build trust and authority by having visitors to engage with your website.
While SEO takes time, patience, and dedication, it is also an investment in the future. It might take a long time to create content and optimise your website, but once you get going you can it can bring in consistent traffic for years to come, and without the immediate cost of PPC. That’s why many UK businesses use PPC to get started while building their SEO strategy for sustained growth in the long terms.
Cost: Why SEO Isn’t Actually Free
Organic traffic can’t be bought directly, which has lead to the common misconception that SEO is ‘free’, especially in comparison to the more obvious and immediate costs of PPC. In reality, SEO requires significant and ongoing investment in time, expertise, and tools – while you might not pay for an organic click, that doesn’t mean it was ‘free’.
For example, outsourcing SEO tasks like content creation, technical fixes, and analytics tools involves regular and potentially significant costs. Writing a single post could take 8-10 hours work including research, drafting, and optimisation. At a reasonable price for skilled work, that post could easily add up to £200-£250, not counting the effort needed to promote and update it. And even if you’re doing it all yourself, that’s time not spent doing other things (what economists call an “opportunity cost”).
PPC is much more transparent, direct, and controllable in terms of costs and results. You set a daily budget and only pay when someone clicks your ad. If you allocate £20 a day to Google Ads, you’ll never exceed that amount and you can guarantee that you won’t pay without getting clicks. This predictability can be really valuable for small businesses with limited budgets.
Another advantage of PPC is you can get immediate feedback on your investment. You can track exactly how much you’ve spent, the clicks you’ve received, and potentially the revenue you’ve generated. SEO in contrast, builds traffic gradually, which can make it hard to directly link your investment to returns, especially in the early stages.
Both strategies require ongoing investment, directly or indirectly. If you have £300 to spend, then PPC gets you clicks right away, but once the budget runs out the traffic will stop. SEO could get you the same or potentially more clicks for the equivalent cost, but it might take years to get to that stage.
Comparison: SEO vs PPC
SEO and PPC both have their benefits and drawbacks, but neither is inherently better – they simply work differently. In fact, when combined each can help cover the drawbacks of the other, creating a coherent marketing plan that can drive great results.
| Aspect | SEO | PPC |
|---|---|---|
| Cost Structure | High upfront investment, both overall and per post, but low ongoing costs. | Pay-per-click model means continuous expense throughout. |
| Timeframe | Long term strategy, typically taking months to yield results, but can also last a long time. | Near immediate visibility, often within hours. Good for short term, but also works in the long term. |
| ROI Potential | Potentially extremely high in the long term, but is also less predictable. | Typically a well managed PPC campaign yields 2-6x return on investment. |
| Targeting Precision | Creating content can target broad keywords or specific queries. | Precision targeting by many different factors such as keywords, location, demographics, and interests. |
| Optimisation | Content can be tweaked but changes in results may be slow to appear. Little control over who sees content. | Both narrow and broad optimisations possible across many different variables. |
| Traffic Sustainability | Can provide steady, long-term traffic once established. | Entirely reliant on budget, stops as soon as campaigns are halted. |
| Trust and Intent | Great for building trust and authority which can bring in future revenue. | Trust is lower, but users are twice as likely to convert. |
| Scalability | Growth depends on content creation and technical resources. | Easily scalable by increasing budget, though campaign management is necessary. |
| SEO is great for building brand authority and achieving long-term growth. Think of it as building your reputation online – it can yield significant and sustained benefits in the long term, but needs time and effort to build up. |
PPC is fantastic for short-term goals, testing new markets, and highly targeted marketing. Whether you’re running a Black Friday promotion, launching a new product, expanding into a new market, or just need to make sure you’re reaching a target audience – PPC offers instant visibility and actionable insights.
Both are viable options, but the best results often come from combining both strategies. Use PPC for targeting marketing campaigns, especially early on when while you’re working on building a solid SEO function for lasting visibility. This approach ensures consistent organic traffic via SEO while PPC makes sure you’re not missing out on high-value, competitive keywords.
Why Small Businesses Need Both SEO and PPC
The idea of ‘SEO vs PPC’ is really a false premise: one is not inherently ‘better’ than the other – they are simply different kinds of marketing with different strengths and weaknesses. The real answer is that used together SEO and PPC complement each other, creating a stronger, more effective, and more resilient marketing strategy.
How SEO and PPC Work Together
Running both SEO and PPC at the same time allows you to dominate the search results page. You can appear in both paid ads at the top and the organic listings below, giving you multiple opportunities to catch a potential customer’s eye.
Because both SEO and PPC are closely tied to internet search engines, they both fundamentally rely on the use of keywords – the words, phrases and concepts that users enter into a search engine. This means your PPC campaigns can quickly test the effectiveness of keywords, giving valuable insights before you invest upfront cost into SEO content. On the flip side, SEO data can uncover high-performing keywords that you might not have considered for paid campaigns.
PPC also acts as a safety net for your SEO efforts. If your organic rankings drop due to algorithm updates or changes to your site, PPC ensures your business stays visible. For small businesses, this can be a lifeline, keeping potential customers engaged even during periods of ranking recovery.
Improve ROI With Data From Both Channels
Combining insights from SEO and PPC helps you make smarter decisions about your marketing spend. PPC provides immediate data on conversions, showing which keywords, landing pages, and audience segments are driving results - information that takes much longer to gather through SEO alone.
PPC audience data can also shape your SEO content strategy. For example, if your paid campaigns reveal that a particular age group or region converts well, you can create organic content tailored to appeal to those segments. Similarly, ad copy that performs well in PPC can inspire meta descriptions and page titles to improve organic click-through rates.
By analysing data from both channels, you can allocate your budget more effectively. Some keywords may be too costly for PPC but rank well organically, while others might perform better as paid ads. This allows you to focus your PPC spend on high-converting keywords that are challenging to rank for organically, ensuring every pound is well spent.
Reduce Risk With Multiple Channels
Focusing solely on organic search can leave your business vulnerable to Google’s algorithm updates, which can cause sudden drops in traffic. Google tweaks its algorithm hundreds of times a year, and even minor changes can impact rankings. By running PPC alongside your SEO efforts, you create a backup plan, ensuring your business remains visible even if organic traffic dips.
Market trends and seasonal shifts also impact SEO and PPC differently. For example, during busy shopping seasons like Black Friday or Christmas, PPC costs often rise due to increased competition, but your organic rankings remain steady. It’s usually a good idea to boost your PPC spending at critical times, while maintaining a visibility in quieter periods with your organic SEO presence and a smaller baseline of PPC spend.
The competitive landscape is constantly changing. New competitors can quickly outbid you on key search terms or publish content that outranks your pages. By diversifying with both SEO and PPC, you ensure that even if one channel faces challenges, your business continues to generate leads and maintain an online presence.
How We Manage Your PPC
At Digital Gurus we recommend having a consistent level PPC spend throughout the year, and boosting it during important periods for your business: for example new product launches, sales, Black Friday, Christmas, etc. This builds up history and optimisation data within your account about what works for your business, so you’re ready to lean into your marketing when it matters the most.
We don’t have retainer contracts, and our minimum spends are just £300 per campaign, so you can easily set up your PPC to run throughout the year and then allocate additional budget for those critical times of the year.
We want to keep things simple, so there are no additional fees for setup or campaign management, it’s all included at no extra cost in your campaign budget. Our philosophy is that we take care of all the fiddly behind-the-scenes technical business, so you can focus on your business. Some of the things we do include:
- Installing conversion tracking on your website
- Continuous A/B testing of creatives
- Keyword research, planning, and optimisation
- Search term auditing and negative keywords management
- Targeting optimisations across a range of different data points
- Bid and budget adjustments for maximum efficiency
- Data analytics to inform optimisations
Basic reporting is available on demand in our platform, and we’ll send you a weekly performance report with key stats and commentary, so you’ll always know exactly how your campaign is going.
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Conclusion: SEO and PPC Work Best Together
SEO lays the foundation for long-term visibility, while PPC delivers instant results. Together, they create a dynamic duo that covers more ground than either strategy could achieve on its own. SEO builds credibility over time, and PPC provides immediate exposure, ensuring your business is visible to potential customers at every stage.
When used together, the benefits multiply. PPC campaigns can quickly reveal which keywords drive conversions, offering valuable insights to refine your SEO strategy. At the same time, SEO establishes trust and authority, making your paid ads more effective. Appearing in both organic and paid search results increases the likelihood of clicks and conversions, giving you a competitive edge over businesses relying on just one approach.
For small businesses in the UK, this combination also serves as a safety net. By diversifying your efforts, you’re better equipped to handle challenges like algorithm updates, seasonal changes, or budget limitations. This ensures your business maintains visibility, no matter the circumstances.
Together, these strategies form a core part of a well-rounded marketing plan that supports steady growth and resilience.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Should a small business use PPC or SEO?
A. The correct answer is actually both. SEO is only free in that you don’t pay for the clicks; even if you’re not paying for a service, it takes time and effort to start showing results. PPC allows you to both get immediate traffic to your website, and to focus on high value searches that are likely to yield commercial results.
Q: How long does it take to see results from SEO and PPC?
A: PPC can start bringing in clicks almost immediately, though it will take at least a month (really 3 months) to be fully optimised and up to speed. SEO will typically take at least 3-6 months to have a meaningful impact.
Q: Should I prioritise SEO or PPC?
A: Both SEO and PPC are important for your business, and both should be priorities. If your business or website is new, PPC will give you more immediate returns, so it’s good to focus your budget towards that first. But that doesn’t mean you should neglect SEO, so make sure you allocate appropriate resources to it from the outset!
Q: How should I split my budget between SEO and PPC?
A: How much to allocated between SEO and PPC depends on many factors like how much budget you have, how old your site is, and how profitable each channel has been for you historically. Ideally you want at least £10 a day allocated to PPC, so a rule of thumb is to allocate £10 a day to PPC and the rest to SEO until you get to £20 a day overall, then increase your funding to each in parallel.
For example if you have £500 a month to start and you can increase your budget by £50 a month, you allocations would be:
| Month | Total | PPC | SEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £500 | £300 | £200 |
| 2 | £550 | £300 | £250 |
| 3 | £600 | £300 | £300 |
| 4 | £650 | £325 | £325 |
Q: How do I measure the success of my SEO and PPC strategy?
A: There are a lot of different ways to potentially measure success, but a few key metrics to look at include:
- Website Traffic: how many visitors come to your site and where they come from
- Conversions: the number and value of important events that happen on your site (for example: form submissions, sales, bookings, enquiries, etc)
- Cost per Conversion: (aka ‘Cost Per Lead’ or ‘Cost Per Action’) the average amount of money you have spent on marketing for each conversion
- ROAS: (‘Return On Ad Spent’) how much revenue your marketing has generated, relative to how much you have spent
