Benefits of combining SEO and paid ads

SEO vs Paid Ads - Why does your business need both for long-term online success?

To better understand how SEO and paid ads can shape your business’s success, let’s explore each strategy individually. Both SEO and paid ads have unique strengths that suit different goals and timelines, and knowing their main benefits and potential downsides will help you decide how to use each for maximum impact. This comparison will give you a clear idea of what SEO and paid ads bring to the table, helping you make a more informed choice for your business.

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How SEO turns your website into a magnet for customers

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is the process of improving a website so that it ranks higher on search engines, like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo. By using targeted keywords, creating excellent written content, and making technical improvements, SEO helps websites become more visible to people searching for related topics or products. SEO attracts organic (unpaid) traffic, meaning more people find the site naturally. It’s a long-term strategy that builds trust and drives consistent, relevant visitors to a website.

SEO offers a range of services to meet diverse business needs. Local SEO targets nearby customers, helping physical businesses grow within their communities. On-page SEO enhances content structure for a better user experience, while e-commerce SEO boosts product visibility in online stores. For specialised industries or global audiences, tailored SEO strategies focus on competitive niches or international reach, maximising relevance.

Benefits of SEO

Visibility that lasts

SEO is about building a foundation for your online presence by optimising your website’s content and structure to rank well on search engines. This approach doesn’t yield immediate results, but the long-term benefits are substantial. Think of SEO as planting a fruit tree—initial growth takes time, but once it matures, it provides fruit season after season. With SEO, you’re positioning yourself where customers search for answers, creating a reliable stream of organic traffic without the need for constant spending.

Consider a niche business like a fair-trade coffee brand. By optimising for terms like “best fair-trade coffee” or “organic coffee blends,” the brand targets people already interested in these products. Since SEO naturally attracts people who are searching for what you offer, this traffic is both relevant and sustainable. SEO allows your business to reach people actively looking for answers, ensuring they find you in moments of interest or decision.

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Credibility and authority

Users are inclined to trust businesses that show up on the first page, as they assume Google has vetted them for relevance. This credibility is crucial in industries where trust is essential, such as healthcare, finance, or consulting. Ranking high in Google sends a signal of reliability, fostering trust even before users click on your site.

Imagine two financial consulting firms. One ranks at the top of Google for “financial advice for small businesses,” while the other is buried on page three. Potential clients are likely to go with the first, seeing the high ranking as a mark of expertise and quality. This trust can be challenging to establish, especially in crowded markets, but SEO’s lasting impact strengthens your business’s reputation over time.

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Cost-effective, long-lasting

SEO can require a significant initial investment, whether that’s in content creation, technical optimisation, or link-building. However, it’s considered the most cost-effective marketing strategy over time.

For example, if you’re a custom furniture maker who optimises a page for “bespoke wooden tables,” once it ranks, it can continually attract interested visitors, generating enquiries and sales with minimal upkeep. While some maintenance of this ranking is still needed, the return on your initial investment often justifies the cost, making SEO a smart choice for sustainable growth.

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Highly-Targeted traffic

SEO attracts users who are already searching for what you offer. This intent-driven traffic is more likely to convert than users who come across your site through a broad advertising campaign. With SEO, your site appears for very specific queries, reaching people at the exact moment they’re considering a purchase or solution. This high intent results in valuable traffic with a stronger chance of converting.

Imagine you’re a vegan bakery optimising for terms like “vegan birthday cake near me.” People who search for these terms are already looking for what you provide, making them likely to purchase. SEO’s ability to attract highly relevant, intent-driven traffic means that your visitors are already interested, resulting in higher conversion rates than broader advertising efforts.

The downsides of SEO

It takes time

The primary downside of SEO is that it takes time to see significant results. Unlike paid ads, which can drive traffic instantly, SEO is a long game that may take months to show measurable improvements. Although in the long run, it pays off, the waiting period can be challenging for businesses looking for rapid growth or immediate visibility.

For example, an e-commerce store launching a unique jewellery line might find the waiting period difficult if they need revenue quickly to cover costs. However, once the site starts to rank, organic traffic becomes consistent and reliable, rewarding patience with a sustainable source of leads and conversions. SEO can pay off significantly over time, but the upfront waiting period is a genuine challenge for businesses needing immediate results.

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Ongoing chase

Unfortunately, SEO isn’t a one-time task—it requires regular upkeep. Search engines frequently update their algorithms, and if your site doesn’t adapt, it may lose its rankings. This constant evolution means that SEO requires a commitment to updating content, improving technical aspects, and adapting strategies as needed.

Let's say you're running a digital marketing agency that relies on blogs like “Best Social Media Strategies.” As new trends emerge and competitors create content, your rankings might drop if you don’t refresh your articles. On top of that, Google’s algorithms are updated frequently, typically around 500 to 600 times per year. Most changes are minor, but several major updates occur each year that can significantly affect website rankings. Staying competitive means consistently optimising content and responding to algorithm changes to maintain your presence in search results.

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Competition

In highly competitive industries, like digital marketing, healthcare, e-commerce, or online banking, breaking into search results can be challenging. Established competitors may dominate top spots, making it hard for newcomers to gain traction. For SEO to work effectively in crowded markets, businesses need a strategic approach that targets specific niches or long-tail keywords. Success requires time, persistence, and a willingness to carve out a unique space in the market.

Consider a new yoga studio hoping to rank for “best yoga classes in [city]” amidst established competitors. Competing with established gyms and studios that have invested in SEO for years requires creativity, such as focusing on specific niches like “yoga for runners” or “prenatal yoga.” In competitive markets, differentiation is key, and SEO can require additional effort to build visibility against large competitors.

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Temptation of instant results with paid ads

Paid ads (or paid advertisements) are online promotion services that businesses pay for to show their offer to potential customers. These ads appear at the top of search engine results or on social media feeds, making them easy to spot. Unlike organic results, which appear naturally, paid ads guarantee immediate visibility because the advertiser has paid for them to reach a specific audience. These ads can be customised to target particular locations, age groups, or interests, and businesses pay either when users click on the ad (pay-per-click) or based on how many people view it (pay-per-impression).

Paid ads offer quick visibility and are an excellent way to promote products or events that need immediate attention.

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The benefits of paid ads

Instant gratification

The most appealing benefit of paid ads is instant visibility. Unlike SEO, paid ads allow you to jump to the top of search results or social media feeds immediately. Paid ads are invaluable for businesses with time-sensitive promotions or new product launches, allowing them to capitalise on demand right when it’s most relevant.

Consider an online clothing store launching a seasonal sale. By running Google Ads for keywords like “summer sale on dresses” or “discounts on winter coats,” they can immediately capture attention and drive traffic to their site. For businesses with time-sensitive offers or product launches, this instant visibility is crucial, allowing them to capitalise on demand when it matters most.

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Targeting capabilities

With paid ads, you have complete control over targeting. You can define your audience based on demographics, interests, and location, ensuring your message reaches the right people. This control is especially helpful for businesses wanting to test different demographics or reach specific audience segments quickly.

Let's say you run a local fitness studio. You could use paid ads to attract younger clients for high-intensity classes and older clients for wellness sessions. By targeting ads with age-appropriate visuals—like energetic workout images for younger audiences and relaxed, flexibility-focused images for older ones—you ensure the message resonates and draws in the right crowd.

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Flexibility

Paid ads can be adjusted in real time based on performance, making them a highly flexible and scalable option. Unlike SEO, where changes take time to implement, paid ads allow you to quickly adjust your message, targeting, or budget. This flexibility is ideal for businesses that need to adapt to changing market conditions or test various strategies on the fly.

Imagine an event planning company that ramps up its ad spend for wedding season and reduces it during off-peak months. This flexibility ensures that resources are optimally allocated for the greatest impact. With paid ads, you can react to market trends in real time, scaling your campaigns up or down based on performance metrics.

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The downsides of paid ads

Costs, competitiveness, short impact

Paid ads can quickly become costly for several reasons. One major factor is competition: larger businesses with bigger budgets often dominate by bidding higher amounts for popular keywords. This drives up the cost-per-click (CPC) for smaller companies, who may struggle to compete financially.

Additionally, once your budget is exhausted, your ads stop showing, and traffic falls back to zero. Unlike SEO, where traffic is maintained over time, paid ads require continuous investment to keep results coming in.

If your landing pages don’t convert well, the cost of ads becomes even less effective. In such cases, SEO and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) become necessary investments, as they help improve user experience and organic rankings—factors critical for conversions.

Let’s say you run an online boutique. You pay for ads targeting “women’s summer dresses.” Larger brands also bid on this keyword, driving up the cost. If your ad budget runs out, your traffic drops, and without strong SEO and CRO, potential customers don’t find your site through organic search either.

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Not-so ‘hidden’ costs

Paid ads require continuous testing, adjustments, and monitoring to be effective. Rarely does a campaign succeed on the first attempt, and if your provider claims it will, run—don’t walk—away. Successful campaigns involve A/B testing different versions, experimenting with headlines, images, and CTAs, and analysing what truly resonates with audiences. These adjustments require expertise, time, and often costly ad management services, challenging for small businesses with tight budgets. Without this process, businesses risk paying for ads that don’t convert, wasting valuable resources.

Imagine a small skincare brand launches a paid ad campaign promoting “organic moisturiser.” After a week, they realised it was not converting as expected. They’ll need to test different images, messages, and audiences, which adds both time and expense, making the campaign more costly than anticipated.

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Does your business need both SEO and Paid ads?

The short answer - it all depends. Whether your business needs both SEO and paid ads depends mostly on your goals. Then comes budget, and timeline, but combining them is often the most effective recipe to achieve long-term growth and instant results.

How do online marketers approach it?

Our approach starts by working closely with clients to fully understand their unique goals and current digital presence. We dive deep into analysing their website, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and growth opportunities to create a balanced marketing strategy. We recommend a tailored budget split—sometimes favouring SEO entirely, but never 100% ads, especially for clients who want a holistic, sustainable approach. Ads alone don’t build the organic credibility that SEO provides, so we aim for a blend that fits each client’s needs, ensuring long-term growth without over-relying on paid traffic.

One fills in while the other develops

SEO and paid ads work together as a powerful combination, with each strategy supporting the other. While SEO takes time to build, paid ads provide an immediate boost, allowing your business to reach customers quickly and boost revenue, while SEO strategies gain traction in the background. 

Using both approaches ensures visibility today and sustainable growth for the future. By combining SEO’s slow-building credibility with paid ads’ instant reach, businesses can attract traffic at every stage of their journey, turning curious browsers into loyal customers.

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Why do SEO and paid ads go hand in hand?

Crafting the right balance between SEO and paid ads is key to building a successful, adaptable marketing strategy. The ratio of budget dedicated to each should reflect the website’s current status and the unique goals of the business. Over time, as SEO efforts strengthen or as the business grows and resources expand, this balance can shift to support new objectives.

Whether focusing on long-term visibility or immediate reach, a proportional and flexible approach allows businesses to adjust their strategy based on evolving needs and goals, maximising the impact of both SEO and paid advertising.

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Build long-term and short-term traffic channels

As they say, it’s wise not to put all your eggs in one basket. By combining SEO and paid ads, you’re creating multiple avenues to reach people—both right away and in the long run. Paid ads bring instant traffic, perfect for product launches, seasonal sales, or events that need a quick boost. Meanwhile, SEO builds a steady presence in search results, drawing visitors naturally over time. This dual approach means your business enjoys both immediate buzz and stable, long-term growth, giving you the best of both worlds.

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Enhance ad performance with SEO and UX optimisation

SEO and UX improvements make paid ads more effective by enhancing the quality of landing pages and boosting relevance. A well-optimised, user-friendly page positively impacts ad quality scores on platforms like Google Ads, often lowering costs per click and improving ad placement. Beyond ad costs, SEO insights reveal keywords and audience interests, refining ad targeting for better results. Together, SEO, UX, and ads form a powerful strategy: ads drive immediate traffic, while SEO and UX improvements encourage engagement and conversions, maximising ad performance and long-term ROI.

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Maximise your reach and audience segmentation

Paid ads allow precise audience targeting, while SEO provides broader organic visibility. By pairing the two, you can reach different types of audiences in various ways. For example, you could use paid ads to target specific demographics, such as young professionals or families, with tailored messaging, while SEO captures a wider range of organic traffic based on relevant keywords. Together, these strategies ensure that you’re maximising reach without relying too heavily on a single source.

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Collecting detailed data on your audiences is key in online marketing—without it, you’re essentially shooting your message into the void. Both SEO and paid ads provide unique insights into audience interests and preferences based on their responses. Over time, this data, combined with the expertise of the right marketing team, equips your business with incredibly precise insights for future decisions, ensuring you’re maximising reach without relying too heavily on a single channel.

Mitigate changes in algorithms and ad cost fluctuations

Relying solely on SEO or paid ads always comes with risks. SEO rankings can fluctuate with algorithm updates, while ad costs can spike based on market demand. Diversifying with both methods reduces your vulnerability to these changes. If algorithm updates impact your organic traffic, paid ads can help maintain visibility, and if ad costs rise, your SEO efforts can bring in traffic without extra spending. This adaptability ensures steady traffic and resilience against industry shifts.

Support brand awareness and conversion optimisation

SEO and paid ads each play unique roles in the customer journey. Paid ads can capture attention quickly, increasing brand awareness and introducing customers to your offerings. SEO reinforces this by building trust and familiarity over time, as repeat exposure to your brand builds credibility. Together, these methods foster a comprehensive customer journey from awareness to purchase, with SEO strengthening brand loyalty and paid ads supporting conversion optimisation.

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The power of dual marketing strategy

To succeed long-term, combining SEO and paid ads is crucial. SEO builds enduring visibility, credibility, and organic traffic, while paid ads provide a way to reach specific audiences quickly and drive immediate conversions. Together, these strategies create a robust and balanced approach, delivering immediate visibility while building sustainable growth. By blending the strengths of both, you ensure a steady flow of traffic, protect against market changes, and maximise reach across a diverse audience.

Ready to enhance your online marketing strategy?

If you’re ready to see how a balanced approach can boost your business, let’s start a conversation. Contact us today to explore how SEO and paid ads can work together to build both instant visibility and lasting growth. Let’s craft a strategy that captures today’s opportunities while preparing your business for the future.