Michael Jones
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) has become the primary tool for digital marketing, with SEO and Google Ads being its main components. They are also the most crucial tools for your marketing campaigns. As a digital marketer, you should understand that there are significant differences and similarities between Google Ads and SEO.
Although they work in different ways, there are situations where you will need to integrate both Google Ads and SEO in your digital marketing campaigns. You might also need to use them separately, but this depends on what you want to achieve with your marketing strategies. Read on to understand the difference between SEO and Google Ads.
Within this article, we will discuss Google Ads and SEO.
I think it’s time to stop pondering over the SEO vs. Google Ads debate. Here’s why.
I think it’s time to stop pondering over the SEO vs. Google Ads debate. Here’s why.
I was even confused when I entered the digital marketing industry, but after extensive research and reading articles, I now understand the difference between both of them very well.
So, let’s start without wasting time.
First, we will read the definitions of Google Ads and SEO.
What is Google Adwords?
2.3 million searches are initiated on Google every second, but most Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) contain Google Ads. These ads are paid for by SMEs who are looking to rank well on Google. Therefore, with Google Ads, you can effectively attract organic traffic to your website within a short duration.
In the image below, we have marked “Ad” in a red box. What does that mean?
Actually, this is how Google shows ads for a particular website on their search engine.
This happens when internet users search for information regarding the products and services your business provides.
Google issues paid advertisements that appear on SERPs on google.com. The company does this using Google Ads or rather, adverts that are displayed on other sites via the Display Network alongside Google’s Adsense programme.
Google also provides Display Ads. These show up on the Google Display Network, which is a wide range of external third-party websites that have partnered with Google and agreed to serve Google Ads.
In a nutshell, Google Ads is an advertising platform primarily owned by Google, making it one of the most effective marketing tools on Google.
What is SEO?
For companies just getting started on designing or redesigning a website, understanding SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and how it works might seem daunting. However, it shouldn’t be that way.
To answer the question asked by millions of novice and seasoned digital marketers, SEO is the process of optimising a website. This optimisation is done to attract unpaid or organic traffic from SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
In a nutshell, SEO involves making adjustments to your website to enhance its capacity to attract organic traffic. These changes should make your site as appealing to the search engine as possible. It’s important to note that you don’t have to place your keywords everywhere to attract the search engine in the hope that it will rank your website at the top of the SERP.
What makes SEO complicated is that many factors impact your ranking, and you have to consider all of them. However, you shouldn’t struggle to understand the basic concepts involved.
Search engines value their users more than your website, which is why they want to serve them high-quality information. To achieve a good rank, your website must aim at providing relevant information and solutions that internet users are looking for.
AdWords VS SEO
As an internet marketer, you need to understand how these two marketing tools work. With that knowledge, it will be easier for you to make the best choice. For instance, you may find it beneficial to choose Google Ads if you want to use paid adverts. SEO, on the other hand, is best for marketers interested in a marketing tool that can be used for all search engines.
Which One is Best for Your Marketing?
If you are a start-up company, it might be helpful to begin with Google Ads. This would work best if you’re still unsure how to utilise SEO. Note that many factors apply when it comes to benefiting from a marketing tool that could be used for all search engines. Hiring an SEO agency is a good idea if you are just getting started with your online business.
With a Google Ads expert, you can learn the ropes and reap the benefits in a matter of weeks. Although there are SEO experts as well, you might not find enough time to study everything and apply them promptly. Furthermore, these aspects keep changing, which means that simply learning them may not be enough. You need to acquire basic knowledge to get started and learn the rest as you progress. Of course, you need SEO to thrive, but we are discussing the best marketing tool when you are just getting started.
It has always been noted that most online entrepreneurs want results quickly. Since SEO has a bit of a learning curve, they tend to shy away from it. This explains why Google Ads seems to serve their needs best. This observation has been made among business owners in almost all niches.
With Google Ads, you will have to pay for every single visit. If you are confident in the profitability of your campaign, then investing in Pay per Click (PPC) wouldn’t hurt. It is one of the best ways to achieve all your business objectives and even stand out from the competition.
Compared to SEO, Google Ads will ensure that you get traffic quickly and make as many sales as possible. You can also use it to find new clients, test your products, website effectiveness, procedures, and many other aspects of your eCommerce.
Even with Google Ads, there are rules involved. Therefore, to achieve your business objectives, you need to use it carefully and effectively. Spending money on Google Ads is the easiest part of the entire process. However, without a good strategy in place to help you control and monitor your tools, you may just accumulate significant losses.
You need to know that without sufficient knowledge of Google Ads, it becomes more like a casino. In the casino, you spend money hoping that somehow you will get it back, but you usually don’t. Therefore, before you start spending money on Google Ads, you need to acquire the prerequisite knowledge. If you don’t have the time for that, consider hiring a Google Ads expert to do the work for you.
SEO is Still a Good one
Perhaps you are convinced that Google Ads is the best option because it works faster. Even as you start with it, you should begin working on your SEO knowledge right away. Note that, at some point, you will need to utilise both tools to meet your online marketing goals. Besides SEO, you should also learn about social media marketing and content marketing to boost the overall performance of your business.
With knowledge of content marketing, you will be able to create the best content for your internet users. To optimise your content for the search engine, you need to understand how SEO works. Finally, your SEO-optimised content needs to reach a wider audience, which is why social media marketing is incredibly crucial.
How Do SEO and Google Ads Work Together?
Before you start setting up a Google Ads campaign, you should ask yourself if you will need SEO for your website optimisation. SEO affects your visibility and ranking on SERPs. SEO also has an impact on the performance of your Google Ads campaigns.
Many online marketers want to know if they can run SEO and Google Ads simultaneously. While this is an important question, there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
There are several things to consider before you start combining both marketing tools on your website.
When it comes to search engine optimisation, the landscape is always changing, making SEO increasingly complex each day. It’s as if Google sells its results pages to the highest bidder, but on a fair playing field. Therefore, you need to do your homework to have a chance at getting your website ranked impressively on SERPs.
Google Ads work differently. If you type a keyword, the results you see belong to large companies that paid significant amounts of money to have their websites ranked. As a beginner, you might not have the funds to pay for top-ranking positions. Now you understand why you might have to combine SEO and Google Ads to achieve your business objectives as quickly as possible. Either way, you must invest time and effort to get what you want because many other businesses out there are already using the same strategy.
Conclusion
If you read this post because you were unsure whether to use Google Ads or SEO for your business, then you can now make an informed decision. Note that you can still do more with backlinks if you want internet users to spend more time on your website. Ensure that when visitors run a local search, they are directed to your website. To achieve this, you must create relevant content aimed at providing them with accurate information. Google Ads experts are available if you need to learn more about how the tool works.
