Paid Search vs. SEO: Which Should I Choose?

Once you’ve established your business, promoting it to your target audience is crucial. Despite the popularity of social media, search engines remain an excellent place to find people interested in what you do.

You can typically reach your desired audience in two ways through search engines. The first is organic search engine optimization (SEO). Aside from that, paid search engine advertising is also popular.

Both have advantages and disadvantages, and you must know how each works before choosing your preferred promotion vehicle. Today, we’ll give you a full paid search vs. SEO comparison. You will also learn why it’s perhaps wise to choose both and not just one or the other.

Paid search involves paying to make one of your website pages more visible in search results. Most of the time, paid search appears above organic results. Some companies promote blog posts, but you can use landing pages for paid search campaigns.

You’ll typically use a cost-per-click (CPC) model when using paid search. Each time a user clicks through, you will pay the search engine. Others will see your results marked as “Sponsored” when they search for something in Google, Bing, or another search engine.

The pros of paid search:

• Faster results than organic SEO.

• The opportunity to build brand awareness.

• Promote specific products, blog posts, etc.

The cons of paid search:

• You need a budget for maximum effectiveness.

• People might trust paid search results less than organic ones.

• It is not always ideal for gaining long-term customers.

SEO involves optimizing websites and pages for organic results. Pages appearing on the first page of Google typically receive much more clicks than any other, making it a core priority for most businesses.

SEO involves a mixture of technical, on-page, and off-page efforts. Beyond keywords, you’ll also need to optimize your site for better mobile speed and ensure your website is easy to navigate. Though many brands optimize for Google, SEO can also involve Bing, DuckDuckGo, and any other search engine you can think of.

SEO has also involved optimizing for AI tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT in recent years.

The pros of SEO:

• Sustainable long-term growth and loyal customers.

• Results improve over time.

• Organic results are often trusted more than paid ones.

The cons of SEO:

• Highly competitive.

• Results take a long time to build.

• Requires ongoing investment to get right.

Now that you know a bit more about paid search and SEO, let’s compare them to make a better choice.

Short-Term Gains

Paid search is by far the best option if you want short-term gains. You can achieve results as soon as you start listing your ads. They’ll appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), meaning you can track them immediately.

SEO results, meanwhile, take longer to compound. You certainly can rank with a new article within 24 hours, especially if you target low-competition search terms. However, not all of your content will rank immediately – and some won’t reach the first page.

Compounding results takes time because Google also likes established websites. It’s no competition; paid search is infinitely better for short-term gains.

Winner: Paid search

Long-Term Results

While paid search is a better short-term option, SEO is by far the superior long-term solution. To continue getting results from paid search campaigns, you need to keep investing money over the long run. On the other hand, SEO starts slow but starts to build momentum.

Once you’ve surpassed 12 months, you’ll likely find it easier to achieve results with SEO. Your old articles will also begin ranking higher in search engines if you provide value.

Another thing to remember with SEO is that your pages that rank can do so for years if they’re particularly good. You’ll need to refresh them to ensure that all information is accurate, but the initial legwork is already done.

Winner: SEO

Overall Cost

The amount of money that you spend on paid search engine ads will depend on what you’re targeting. More competitive terms cost more, whereas low-competition results will be less expensive. However, I’d argue that it’s worth just trying to rank organically for low-competition search results.

Generally speaking, you should spend at least $500 per month to get solid results from paid search. Calculating target search terms’ PPC will help you decide on an ideal budget for you.

While it’s technically free to rank in Google, SEO is also quite expensive. If you’re not willing to do the work yourself, you’ll need to hire a writer who is knowledgeable about your chosen topic. SEO software can also cost quite a lot; Ahrefs and Semrush both cost over $100 per month (though Ahrefs does have a $29/mo Lite plan). You might also need to hire an SEO specialist.

Both avenues cost money, and the return on investment largely depends on your goals.

Winner: Tie

Learning Curve

SEO has a huge learning curve. Beyond just adding keywords, you also need to know how to optimize your website for better rankings. Sometimes, it’s simple things like changing your font size or improving the contrast on your website.

Other things you’ll need to learn with SEO are:

• Keyword difficulty and density

• Website authority (especially E-E-A-T)

• Metatitles, tags, etc.

That being said, paid search also isn’t easy. You must know how to segment your audience, and this will likely take some trial and error. Understanding how to write effective ad copy is also crucial. Optimizing your headlines and ensuring that landing pages deliver on the ad message is also vital.

SEO and paid search are two unique skill sets, and both are equally challenging.

Winner: Tie

Clickthrough Rates

Whether you advertise or build pages for organic results, getting clicks is the primary objective for paid advertising and SEO. However, their actual rates in this respect vary significantly.

According to Wordstream, the average CTR for paid search engine ads is 4-6% across multiple industries. The site claims that a “good” CTR is around 6-7%.

On the other hand, organic SEO clickthrough rates can be significant. According to Semrush, the first result in a search page gets around a 22% clickthrough rate. A good CTR, meanwhile, is roughly 20%. However, percentages diminish as you go further down search results.

If done correctly, organic search result CTRs are typically higher than paid ads.

Winner: SEO

First and foremost, you should only use paid search if you actually have the budget. You’re competing against companies who can spend millions of dollars on this, meaning that you need to be resourceful as a newbie. Without significant financial backing, you’re better off investing in organic SEO.

Paid search is ideal when you want to promote specific pages. You may wish to highlight a product or service to your audience, for example. Meanwhile, some brands use paid search to improve brand visibility. You may find this useful if you’re new and don’t yet have the leverage from organic results.

One useful thing to note is that paid search can be used for both local and international search results. You’ll need to segment your traffic based on who you’re trying to reach.

Every business of every size, regardless of its goals, should strongly consider SEO. The benefits are huge for brand visibility and building a loyal audience.

SEO is very useful for growing long-term trust and ensuring that the right people find you over time. It can be cost-effective if you’re willing to think outside the box, but even if not, you can get significant results with time and consistency.

Even if you don’t consistently publish blog posts, SEO is important for overall website visibility. You should still adopt practices like mobile optimization and intentional keyword placement to ensure that your target audience can find your products and services.

It’s easy to think that you should choose either paid search or SEO, but the truth is that both are important. While paid search focuses more on short-term results, SEO is a better strategy for attracting a bigger audience over the long run. It’s also more sustainable, and as a result, it can lead to more consistent business growth. Pick SEO if you don’t have a big budget and iterate on your results. If you do have some spare cash to send, use a combination of SEO and paid search.