SEO vs Google Ads

MICHAEL:
Hi guys, Michael here. Do you want a second opinion on your SEO? Head to theseoshow.co and hit the link in the header. We'll take a look under the hood at your SEO, your competitors and your market and tell you how you can improve. All right, let's get into the show.

INTRO: It's time for the SEO show, where a couple of nerds talk search engine optimization, so you can learn to compete in Google and grow your business online. Now here's your hosts, Michael and Arthur.

MICHAEL: Welcome back. Welcome back to the SEO show. Do you know who I am?

ARTHUR: Michael Cosson, co-host of the SEO show.

MICHAEL: I'm trying to be Ritchie Beno.

ARTHUR: You didn't, you didn't watch QuickRip back then. So.

MICHAEL: Well, he used to say, welcome back. Anyway, I don't know. I'm just trying to change things up for the intro this week. We are back. It is cool. Actually, it's definitely not cool, but let's, let's just forget that happened and move on and chat about SEO. This week we're talking SEO. versus Google ads. It's a battle royale, isn't it Arpa?

ARTHUR: It is a battle royale, a blood bath.

MICHAEL: What team are you on? Have a guess. I'm gonna guess SEO. Good guess. But you know what? We at our agency, we do a lot of Google ads for people. So we're gonna be able to speak about that channel. We know a lot about it as well. And we do get asked this a lot from clients, prospects, you know, what should I do? What's better for me? Should I focus on Google ads? Should I focus on SEO? So we're gonna sort of run through the pros and cons of each channel. And then at the end, there'll be the big reveal of- A big winner. The winner of the Battle Royale.

ARTHUR: I've got an idea who's gonna win. I have a gut feeling.

MICHAEL: Do you? Yeah. Well, hold that thought. because it might not be as obvious as you think it is when we get there.

ARTHUR: Time will tell.

MICHAEL: To the listeners. Anyway, this is to the listeners. You sort of ready. Anyway, let's get into it. Let's check Google ads. Let's chat pros of Google ads. The first one for me is speed. Yep. Faster results. because with Google ads, you build your campaign, you put it in the interface, you launch it, and the ads are probably running, you know, they're live in sometimes a few minutes. You put in your credit card details too, the most important part. Well, the Google is very good at getting that money out of you. But yeah, you get the campaigns live and you can expect them to be running within an hour, usually at least. And you start getting traffic to your site from the keywords that you're targeting. So it's good, it's quick. That's not to say that with Google ads, it's going to be dialed in instantly. No. You know, it normally takes, let's say a whole new campaign. You're looking at three months probably because the first month is normally building out the ads, setting it all up, launching it, running it. Then you need time for data to come back in. So that first month you're just buying the data. It's going to be a little bit trashy in a way, you know, there'll be some good stuff. There'll be some bad stuff. But then you can use that to start to dial in the campaigns, optimize it, get rid of the waste, focus to spend on the areas at work. So look, three months is probably when you'll know whether it's working properly for you or not. That's faster than SEO, which we'll cover off in the SEO section. And the other good thing about Google ads is you are guaranteed to show at the top for the exact keywords that are important to you at a price. At a price, you're paying for that. But as we always say in SEO, there are no guarantees. No, that's true. Google ads, there are guarantees.

ARTHUR: Yeah. So when you say the top is top three, yep. Top page one, basically.

MICHAEL: Well, for Google, for our, sorry, SEO.

ARTHUR: No, no, sorry for Google ads. So you, you pay to be in the top three or four positions or bottom of page one.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So the way you guarantee to be at the top is to bid a huge amount of money. You know, that will guarantee that you're in the very top spot. Yeah. There are other factors that go into it, like your quality scores and the like, but. The easiest way is just to pay Google a lot of money and you can be at the top for the keywords that matter to you. And like some businesses, that's how they operate. Like, you know, skip in higher companies will be spending a ton on every click just to be at the top and to get that lead and try and convert them.

ARTHUR: Yeah. There'll be some businesses that have almost unlimited marketing budgets as well that can just plow money into it. So they're always number one. Exactly. For vanity reasons, more than anything.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Yep. But, um, you know, if, if I guess if you're under time pressure, like some clients come to us and they sort of want to see results quickly, I don't have the time or the stomach to invest in SEO for months and months and months and trust that there's going to be a payoff in the long run. Yeah, it definitely makes sense. Yeah. So with your Google ads, you can be up and running quickly and you can be at the top for the exact keyword that you want to be there for. Likewise, you can specifically target commercial intent, right? So with Google ads, if you're paying every time someone clicks on your ad, that's how Google ads works. You don't really want to be there for a search, like, you know, let's say you're a conveyancer and someone is saying, you know, what does a conveyancer do? You don't want your ad showing for that sort of a keyword. With Google ads, you have a lot of control over that stuff. So you can target keywords like cheap conveyance to Sydney. If you're a cheap- Fixed fee conveyancing. Yeah, fixed fee. Online conveyancing, yeah. So you can go after that intent and make sure that you're going for those bottom of funnel searches, basically. For people with their wallets out, so to speak. So look, they're the main pros of Google ads, in our opinion. But what are the cons? Give us a con.

ARTHUR: A con. Well, I briefly did a bit of Google ads a couple of years ago and I can tell you firsthand, it can be a little bit complex. So I guess starting with the interface, you really need to know where to look and what you're looking at and how to interpret the data to make, I guess, good decisions. So there's a lot to learn. There's a lot of little,

MICHAEL: acronyms?

ARTHUR: Yeah, like lingo, the terminology. Yeah, all the lingo, you need to kind of pick all that up. And then, you know, analyzing the data and making the decisions based on the data to, I guess, drive the best results. So it's not something that you can just, you know, set up yourself if you have no experience, because you'll probably have no idea what you're looking at.

MICHAEL: And this is where a lot of people go wrong with Google ads. Like they will launch campaigns and due to the way they've set it up themselves, you know, settings with keyword targeting or location targeting budget, it will go horribly.

ARTHUR: They blame Google ads. Yeah. There's so much, so much involved, you know, looking at search query reports, adding in negative keywords, things like that to make sure that you're getting the best bang for buck.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So you had your little foray into Google ads a couple of years ago. How was it? Did you come through unscathed?

ARTHUR: Did you miss it? I came through unscathed. I mean, it. I knew how to do it. It's just, it takes time. You know, like it's not something that you can just set and let it run because you basically just burn through money like no tomorrow. So you just need to know what you're doing, be patient, be passionate about it. You need to want to like data and be analytical in order to enjoy it. So I did enjoy it, but I prefer SEO. SEO is just a little bit more, I feel creative and you know, there's just, yeah, I just enjoy it more.

MICHAEL: Yeah, SEO has got that aspect to it, but it's got a bit more in the way of, you know, coming up with copy and testing different things.

ARTHUR: And there's, you know, different, you know, the different pillars of SEO. So you've got your link building, you've got your content. Some people might be more technical, so there's just more to it, I think.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And, um, I guess with the analogy I like to use all the time is like, I like doing a bit of landscaping at my house, then I have to do it a second time and then a third time. And then I get the professional to come in and do it once and for all. Yeah. Google ads, you know, business person. You can launch your Google ads, but they're probably not going to work very well. You'll probably blame Google ads and then you might get the professional in and they end up working. So as a business person, you don't want to spend your time learning that overwhelming user interface and learning all the lingo and all the rest of it. You know, you probably want to be focusing on more productive, bigger things for your business.

ARTHUR: And if you have a bad experience, the first time you do it, if you're running it yourself, you probably won't believe in it. So it will be, you won't trust the person that's running it as well. Cause you have that perception that it doesn't work. You know, I've already tried it. I've spent thousands of dollars and didn't get anything from it. So.

MICHAEL: Yeah. But you're normally like, you know, if you do a search for any of the commercial keywords in your space and you see a ton of advertisers there consistently, that tells you Google ads does work. You just haven't cracked the formula in your specific case.

ARTHUR: Exactly.

MICHAEL: But look, another con I have, and there's a little bit of debate here over the percentages. So take the percentage with a grain of salt, but you know, anywhere from 60 to 70% of people bypass the ads. and look at the organic results. 60 to 70 now before it was just 70. I'm giving it a range. Look, this used to be the case because it used to be really simple with Google. There'd be ads, then there'd be organic ads. Now they just work in things like shopping. They remove the ad labels. They try to hide the ads as much as possible so they look like organic results. All this stuff encouraged to make people click the ads more, but generally, You know, there's two camps of people, people that click ads, people that don't, people that don't are still in the majority. Yeah. Is that fair to say that they'll go down to the SEO results?

ARTHUR: Depends I guess what they're searching for, but I'd say most of the time.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So if you're only running Google ads, you are leaving a lot of traffic on the table. You're missing out on all those people that some people just inherently won't click ads. They don't trust them. They know they're sponsored ads. They know that people are paying to be there. They'll go pass them and look for those glorious SEO results where Arthur spends his time. So that's it gone. You know, you want to be present where your customers are, whether that's ads or SEO, ideally.

ARTHUR: You have an analogy for that one. It's like renting and buying a house. Well, let's do it. You can do it.

MICHAEL: with Google Ads, you are renting the traffic. You know, you turn off the, you stop the ads or your credit card expires and you don't realize it. The ads will stop, the traffic stops, and then your leads and sales stop. It's like renting a house. Exactly, you don't pay your rent. It takes a bit longer to get kicked out of a rental house than it does to get kicked out of Google Ads though. But the same principle, like you don't pay your landlord, you will eventually get kicked out of that house.

ARTHUR: Yeah, whereas SEO is like building a house

MICHAEL: owning the house. It's like an asset for the long-term. An investment. Yeah. Like once you've done that upfront investment, you can scale it back. You can reap the rewards of it. Over time it gets bigger and better. So that's the analogies we like to use. Google ads. Yeah. If you do decide to turn them off, there goes your traffic. So it's very quick, but it goes both ways. It's very quick to start, very quick to stop. The big one though, that a lot of people say is Google ads is just expensive. You know, what do you think about that?

ARTHUR: It is expensive.

MICHAEL: You look very unimpressed with that.

ARTHUR: No, no, I am very impressed. Yeah, well done. Yeah, it can definitely be expensive. I mean, there's a lot of things like the first thing that comes to mind is you are paying for that traffic. So you need to get the most out of it. Every click counts basically. So you have to make sure you're sending the traffic. to the right place, you have to make sure that the landing page, you make sure that first and foremost, you are sending it to a landing page or wherever it's meant to go and making sure that whoever lands on that page is going to convert. So making it as easy for them to convert as possible.

MICHAEL: So that can be, you know, as a business owner, that's tough. You're already battling with your Google ads. Then you've got to create a landing page somehow. How do you even do that? Exactly. I know, but as a business owner, and then you've got to get the design right. You've got to get the copywriting on point. Sales copywriting has got to be strong. Do you know how to do that as a business owner? Those, you know, it's not just Google ads doesn't just operate in its own silo. Like all of those factors play their part.

ARTHUR: Yeah. There's been people like clients in the past where they would send traffic to an about us page. Yeah. No one's going to do anything. No one's going to convert. So yeah.

MICHAEL: Even what happens after the conversion, like what's your sales process like? Do you have a very structured process where you qualify the lead and you educate them as you go and then you pitch them really well and then the proposal is strong and then the follow-up is strong and everything's done well? Or do you just jot down like the customers details when they call you and then say, I'll call you back and then forget to do it. Cause I'm on the roof. Whatever. Yeah. Sorry. I'm on the roof at the moment. Can you just call me back later? True story. That's happened. That is a true story right there. Yeah. So maybe we'll give a bit of background about that story. We had one client, it was a air conditioning company. We were running Google ads for them, driving lots of traffic and we had call tracking set up so we could tell when leads were coming in from Google ads. And we would have people calling to inquire about ducted air conditioning systems, you know, expensive $10,000 plus systems. And the guy that runs a business was also taking the calls while he was in the roof, installing another system. And he would tell people, Oh, look, I'm in a roof right now. Can you call me back later? He might've paid 15 or 20 bucks for that click. He's got a lead from someone that's looking to buy an expensive product.

ARTHUR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: but the experience from a sales point of view is just abysmal.

ARTHUR: Exactly. They would have called a competitor and probably went with them purchase with them.

MICHAEL: Yeah, exactly. And that, you know, can then make the business owner say, Oh, this Google ad stuff doesn't work. I've got no business from it, but it's not, you know, Google ads is a means to get people to your site, but your site and the way you sell equally as important or maybe even more important. Yeah. So look, yes, it can be expensive, but if your marketing funnel and your sales machine, your engine on the backend of it are dialed in, they're on point, it doesn't matter that it's expensive. Like the cost of Google ads becomes irrelevant because the return on the backend is big. So, you know.

ARTHUR: It's like that iceberg picture where you see the tip of the iceberg and then everything below it, you know, Google ads is the tip of the iceberg. You have to also think about all the other stuff.

MICHAEL: I like that. That's good. That's good. We come up with great analogies every week and then I forget them. Write them down. Yeah. I've got to, I've got to talk about the next point. So anyway, I'll remember that one maybe. But look, that's, that is Google ads, pros and cons. You know, they're the main ones. There's all sorts of stuff we could talk about, but we wanted to keep it pretty top line. Let's get to Arthur's favorite part, the SEO. I'm going to let you take over here and chat about some pros because I think you're really going to light up. Am I?

ARTHUR: You'd hope so.

MICHAEL: I can see you've lit up already. A big smile on your face.

ARTHUR: I'm always smiling. Always smiling. Okay, so SEO pros. So I guess you kind of touched on this. More people tend to click on organic results over paid results. So I guess that comes down to trust. So over the last, you know, however long Google's existed, people are just so used to clicking on organic results. They know that the people that pay for ads pay for ads. So you have that trust there. So you drive more traffic to your website. I guess, again, another point that we touched on is that you earned the traffic. So the traffic is, are you gonna say anything?

MICHAEL: No, I was nodding, yeah. I was just like, you're in your element here, you're doing well. You were just smiling and nodding at me. Just smiling, I thought you were gonna chime in there. Well, look, you do earn the traffic and the upside of that traffic is unlimited.

ARTHUR: unlimited to whatever the search volume is for the keywords, but yeah, essentially unlimited.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So let's, let's expand on that. Cause like, let's say Google ads, I'll keep it real simple here. You have a thousand dollar ad spend budget. So the money that goes to Google for the clicks on the ads. And let's say your clicks average out to about 10 bucks a click. So you're going to get a hundred clicks in a month and then your budget's done. Your traffic's done, your ads will stop until the next month. Exactly. Whereas with SEO, let's say that in your space, there's 50,000 searches a month and you're ranking at the top for a good chunk of those keywords. You might be able to get 25, 30,000 clicks to your site that month. You're not limited by budget, that traffic's going to keep on coming. So this makes the SEO channel really appealing because the more traffic you get to your site, if it's designed well, if it's copy written well, hopefully it's written better than I can talk, but yeah, if the copywriting is strong, then that traffic is just more chances to convert, right?

ARTHUR: Yeah. I guess a little disclaimer there would be like, in order to rank for those high volume keywords, it's going to take time. So an investment and investment, of course. Yeah. So I guess on the flip side with Google ads, you can switch it on if you want to rank for a competitive keyword. And I like to use the example of flower delivery, Sydney. Um, it's not going to happen overnight, so you need to invest and you need to put effort into it. But once you get to, you know, the top of Google, you know, it opens the floodgates so to speak. And you know, you see traffic just important.

MICHAEL: You sound like a digital marketing agency ad. Do I? We're going to open the floodgates and make you skyrocket. I work at a digital marketing agency.

ARTHUR: So that makes sense.

ARTHUR: But yeah, the traffic just skyrockets and then so does revenue. So yeah.

MICHAEL: It's a great channel. It is a great channel. The other good thing about the traffic and the content and stuff is you can go, I'm going to call it full intent of the full intent funnel. So if you think about intent, like some people might be searching, coming back to that conveyancing example, what is a conveyancer? So that intent there is just informational. They're just basically asking what is a conveyancer? They're not likely to convert, but there's going to be a lot of traffic there. Exactly. So you can create content to address that. You know, people that are just at the very early stages. get them to your site. And if your site's design well, copy written well, all the stuff I've been saying, then you might be able to convert some of that traffic, but you're exposing your brand to those people. You might be able to get them to opt in for a infographic or an ebook or, you know, something, and then get them in your email list and market to them over time, or you're getting them in your, your remarketing audiences, and then you can serve them ads. So, you know, it is good to go after informational traffic on SEO where you're not paying for every click. Likewise, people in the research phase or people right down at the purchase phase where they're saying, you know, best conveyancer near me or conveyancer for two-story properties in Glebe or whatever. You can go after all of that traffic. Whereas on Google ads, most of the time you're going after that bottom of funnel traffic. So the commercial intent, the people that have their wallets out. So there's a much lower percentage of those people, less traffic there, but you don't want to be paying for informational searches. You don't want to be paying for, you know, what does a conveyancer do on Google ads. So this, all this stuff we've just spoken about combined usually makes the ROI from SEO strongest in the long run, which you touched on before, right?

ARTHUR: Did I?

MICHAEL: Yeah, when you're saying things skyrocket. Oh, sorry.

ARTHUR: Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. I did. I'm just trying to think, is it, I think it is, you know, I'm just trying to think back and looking at all the clients that we work on in terms of revenue that they generate from organic and whatever their fees are certainly is probably by far the highest ROI.

MICHAEL: Absolutely. Because of that unlimited upside that you, cause normally, normally, Not even normally, but your investment, let's say you invest five grand a month in SEO. You do that for six months, you've invested 30 grand, and then all of a sudden things take off. Your revenue is just exploding each month because you're starting to rank, but your investment remains static. So, you know, it's consistent, but your traffic's up, your sales are up, and then you might scale back that investment. You might increase it because there's more opportunities to go after, but, you know, the ROI is going to be much higher usually from that channel.

ARTHUR: I'm just trying to think back to, you know, clients and analytics and just my photographic memory to see, but I can, yeah, once after a while, it's not instant, but after a while, organic is usually the highest performance channel when it comes to things like organic revenue. Yep.

MICHAEL: Cause the thing with like Google ads by nature, Because they use bidding and it's a competitive like auction based environment, the ad costs are really just pushed pretty much as high as the market will tolerate. So it's very hard to, it's pretty much impossible to drive the level of ROI from Google ads that you can from SEO. Yeah. Cause you've got to think we're talking about things like people, informational searches, all of that traffic opting in for eBooks. And then in the long run, you know, you can take months to convert that person because they came via SEO in the early days, read an article, opted into an email list, received all your emails. Whereas on Google ads, you're really trying to focus on those wallets out buyers. So. Very true, well said. Thank you, it is very true. So the last one that we have just helps your brand perception in the market just to be at the top, right?

ARTHUR: I think so, because people know that if you're appearing first in the ads, that you paid for it. So you're paying to be number one. Whereas if they see you first organically, they know that there's a reason you're there. So they might not necessarily know how SEO works, but they know that if you're first organically, you're probably trustworthy, that you're an authoritative, you know, site or whatever in that space, which is why you're number one.

MICHAEL: Yeah. You deserve to be there for all sorts of different reasons, really.

ARTHUR: So I guess most people know how Google works, like probably on a very basic level, not on a complex level like we do, but there were no well enough to know that to be first that you're obviously doing something right.

MICHAEL: Yeah. You're a real legit business. Yeah. So they're the pros. We could talk all day about the pros. You should have seen Arthur light up when we were talking about this, but we're going to keep it simple. I'm going to keep it top line. We're going to move into the cons because there are a few cons about SEO, right? Yeah. It's like our spin horror. I wouldn't really call them cons. Okay. Well give us one, give us a con.

ARTHUR: SEO is long-term. So we kind of touched on that as well throughout this episode, but you can't just switch SEO on and expect results instantly. So depending on where you are, how long you've had your website, how much SEO you've done in the past, it can take anywhere from three months, six months, 12 months, even longer, depending on your niche, how competitive it is, what you're selling, what your products are. So yeah, it's just a long-term kind of strategy. You have to kind of be prepared to invest for that period of time to start seeing those results. I mean, when you do and when the results start coming, then obviously happy days, but yeah.

MICHAEL: It requires a bit of a stomach for it as well. Like you've got to be okay with investing money each month without much happening and just trust in the long-term process.

ARTHUR: And that helps when the client knows how SEO works. I mean, if they have no idea and they're flying blind, then they're going to have, you know, second thoughts and cold feet and they'll probably leave after two months. So. as long as you kind of show them the gradual improvements and explain to them what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the results that kind of show from the work that you've done. Yeah, that usually helps, I find.

MICHAEL: Yeah. But I guess, yeah. It's trust in the process. And I guess I would put as a con, if you're working with the wrong service, then you can be investing in it for a long time and then see no results.

ARTHUR: It's trust in the person that's doing your SEO as well. Are they being transparent? Are they giving you information? Are they answering your questions properly? You can usually tell pretty quickly if they're a good SEO or a bad SEO. So that plays a big part, trust in whoever's running your campaign. have a look at LinkedIn, have a look at their experience, ask them if they've worked in any websites in the same niche or similar websites. That usually helps and gives the client confidence to continue investing.

MICHAEL: So with it being a long-term game, It usually is more suited to establish businesses that can afford to invest in it without seeing an immediate return. A lot of people might start too soon. They hear about SEO, I've got to do SEO. Yeah, I need to do it straight away. And it doesn't normally go hand in hand with trying to grow a new fledgling business. Unless you're doing it yourself and know what you're doing, but paying for an agency to do it, we're talking about here.

ARTHUR: Or if you have the budgets, I mean, if you have the budget to do it, it's good to start, you don't have to start.

MICHAEL: Yeah. If you're well-funded as a business, sure. It makes sense to invest in SEO, but you know, a lot of businesses are just bootstrapping themselves, trying to grow and get to the point where they can invest in marketing. So in those days, probably not the best channel. A good salesperson should let them know. That is very true. A lot of SEO agencies will just sell SEO to anyone regardless of where they're at or whether it's right for them. which we've covered on other episodes. So, you know, we've got a whole episode about dodgy SEO sales tactics. That's a good one. It is a good one. So go back and have a listen to that. I don't know what episode it was, but it's there in the list at the SEOshow.co, little plug. But anyway, let's move on to another con. We won't dwell on the cons too long, because I don't want to upset Arthur too much. I know how passionate- What's the SEO show?

ARTHUR: Yeah, exactly. So we've got- Supposed to be listing cons of SEO.

MICHAEL: We've got one more. We are very transparent about the world of SEO and sometimes there are cons. The last one is definitely a con algorithm updates.

ARTHUR: That's the con. Yeah. So I guess, you know, SEO is all happy days when things are going well, but there is a possibility that things can go pear-shaped, there's things outside of anyone's control like algorithm updates that can shake things up. So although you'll be ranking first and generating heaps of traffic and heaps of revenue, leads, whatever, that can turn off an instance. So there might be a big core algorithm update and you'll find that you're no longer ranking first, you're dropping off deeper into the SERPs.

MICHAEL: I have just thought of an addition we can make to our analogy. Which one? The houses one, renting and building. You have so many. I don't know. I can't keep up. Well, when, when you own a house, let's say there's a flood or a hurricane or something, hurricane, cyclone. and it damages your house. And then you've got to do a bit of work to repair the house and sort of get it back to where it was. Okay. That's like, you know, like, so it's not with, with SEO, the, you know, the upside is great and you traffic you own not rent, but sometimes there is a hurricane that comes in hurricane Google and shakes things up and you do need to spend a bit of time getting yourself back to where you were before. And if you were doing SEO for long enough and you're running a website for long enough and relying on the traffic and leads from a website for long enough, you will be impacted by these upheavals in the search results every so often. It's unavoidable, but the upside of SEO is so great. You know, the results that you can get from it are so great that, you know, you can ride those waves normally. And particularly if you're working with a good agency, they can help you fine tune your site and tweak things and get it back to where it was when these updates do happen.

ARTHUR: Yeah, definitely.

MICHAEL: Sometimes you can be blasted out of the search results. Yeah. You know, but very rarely, but yeah. Particularly these days, they don't really seem to penalize sites as much. They just sort of discount stuff.

ARTHUR: I've not seen a site be completely removed from the search results in a very long time. At the very worst, I've seen them, you know, drop from position one, maybe to page two or something, depending on whatever the update was, but never have I seen them just completely wiped out.

MICHAEL: Yeah, so we'll count that as a con. You know, the updates aren't as devastating as they used to be.

ARTHUR: And it's just about, you know, if that happens, you have to revisit your strategy and have a look and try to figure out what the update was focused on and improve the site and address the issues that you think might be causing your rankings to drop. So it's not, you know, game over. It just means you have to work a little bit harder to get back to where you were.

MICHAEL: Yeah, or keep growing. It's like any business, no business grows like perfectly diagonally up into the right. It's never linear.

ARTHUR: That's what I try to explain to clients as well as, you know, things like rankings, you will see they fluctuate. You know, it's never like, you know, you go one by one to position one. Sometimes you'll go from 20 to 14, back to 16 to nine, back to 16 to four, you know? So it's not linear, but as long as it's going in the right direction over a period of time, that's what you want to see. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Agreed. All right. Well, That is our chat about the SEO versus Google Ads battle royale. You're probably wondering, what's the verdict? You know, after listing those pros and cons, you probably wanna know what we think.

ARTHUR: We've got here written both, but I'm gonna say SEO.

MICHAEL: You say SEO? Nah, both. I say both. Okay, don't rely on any one channel. You should have multiple channels making up your digital marketing mix. You wanna be present for those that click the ads. You wanna be present for those that bypass them. Now we are the SEO show, so it's obviously a channel we love, but any business that's legit, that is a decent size, that is established, that is marketing itself properly, that's serious about growing, should have a presence in paid media and have a sales machine that can turn that consistently into profit. You want to be able to generate profit for your business from paid ads. Exactly. It's just a must have. Likewise, if you're big enough, if you're looking for long-term growth, you want to have a presence in SEO. You can't sort of ignore that channel.

ARTHUR: So do both. Yeah. And they work together. Like you said, you know, there might be areas that you're not ranking for that you want to really focus on. So you can kind of bridge that gap with Google ads and then work on those pages to increase their organic visibility to the point where they are ranking. Then you can switch off ads. So using it as a tool to kind of bridge bridge gaps, so to speak, and help drive more traffic and business to your site.

MICHAEL: Yeah. You can test new products or service ideas with Google ads. and make sure there's a market for it and that it's selling. Like let's say you're an e-com store and these products are doing really well in Google Ads and shopping, then maybe that's what you focus on SEO.

ARTHUR: Some people just want to earn a keyword. They want to be first in ads, first organically. They just want to be front and center. So whenever anyone searches for that keyword, they want to be first in their mind.

MICHAEL: Yeah, so after all of that, the recommendation is, or the verdict is both, you know, each channel has its place.

ARTHUR: Yeah, but if you have to choose one SEO. Well, what if you were a new business?

MICHAEL: If I was a brand new business, I would choose Google ads, honestly speaking. And then I would expand to SEO when I had the means to. Yeah, definitely. But look, both channels are great. They have their purpose. We are the SEO shows. So, You know, everything we talk about is through the lens of SEO, but you know, there's a whole lot of other channels out there that really you should be considering as a business. Um, but look, we won't, we won't talk about that now. We are the SEO show. We're going to leave it at that. We will be back next week with another episode talking just about SEO, no other channels. Arthur's face is lit up. He's been lighting up at every mention of a SEO pros today. All right. That is the SEO show for this week. We'll leave it at that. Both channels are good. Next week, we'll be back to talk about Just SEO, our favorite channel. Go SEO. So if you liked that episode, please leave us a review or share it or do something to get this in the ears of other listeners. Otherwise we will see you next week. Ta-ta. Ciao.