SEO vs Google Ads

It’s the age old debate – should I focus on Google Ads or SEO for my business? This week we take a look at the pros and cons of both channels and the best use cases for each… and give our verdict on which one is the best at the end – you might be surprised by what we have to say.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Local Digital 0:04
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 host, Michael and Arthur.

Michael 0:23
Oh, welcome back. Welcome back to the SEO show. Do you know who I am?

Arthur 0:28
microcosms?

Michael 0:30
Well, I’m trying to be Richie benaud. You didn’t you know, back then. So, well used to say a welcome back. Anyway, I had no just trying to change things up for the intro this week. We were 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 verse Google ads. It’s a battle royale. Isn’t it alpha?

Arthur 0:57
It is a battle royale. bloodbath. Well, Tim, you have a guess.

Michael 1:03
I’m gonna guess FCA could guess. But you know, what we, at our agency, we do a lot of Google ads for people. So we’re going to 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 going to sort of run through the pros and cons of each channel. And then at the end, there’ll be the big reveal of big winner, the winner of the Battle Royale.

Arthur 1:31
I’ve got an idea who’s going to win? I forgot feeling.

Michael 1:34
Yeah, yeah. Well, hold that thought. Because it might not be as obvious as you think it is, when we get there. Tom will tell to the listeners anyway, this is to the listener, you sort of ready? You know. Anyway, let’s get into it. Let’s check Google ads. Let’s chat. Pros of Google ads. The first one for me

Arthur 1:56
is speed. Yep, faster results.

Michael 1:58
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 live in sometimes a few minutes, your credit card details for the most important part where the Google is very good at getting that, that money out of you. But yeah, yet the campaign’s 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 dialled in instantly, no, you know, 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 the ads, setting it all up, once you get running up, then you need time for data to come back in. So that first month of 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, optimise it, get rid of the waste focus spend on the areas at work. So 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. 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 3:26
Yeah. So when you say the top top three, yep, top page one, basically. Well, for Google for our sorry, SEO? No, no, sorry, for Google ads. See, you pay to be in the top three or four positions on

Michael 3:37
page one? Yeah. So the way you guaranteed to be at the top is to be 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, for the keywords that matter to you. And like some businesses, that’s how they operate. Like, you know, skipping hire companies will be spending a tonne. Yeah, on every click just to be at the top and to get that, that lead and try and combat them.

Arthur 4:08
Yeah, there’ll be some businesses that have almost unlimited marketing budgets as well, that can just plough money into it. So they’re always number one. Exactly. For that any reason more than anything?

Michael 4:17
Yeah, yep. But um, you know, if if, I guess if you’re in a 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, definitely. Makes sense. Yeah. So with the 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 saying you know What does it conveyancer? Do? You don’t want your ad chain 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 conveyancer, Sydney. Conveyancing. Yeah. Conveyancing, yeah. So you can go after that intent and make sure that you’re going for those bottom of funnel searches, basically, you know, with their wallets out, so to speak. So that look, they’re the main pros of Google ads, in our opinion. But what are the cons? Give us a con, a con. Well, I

Arthur 5:33
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 what 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 5:52
acronyms. Yeah, like lingo, the terminology, all the

Arthur 5:54
lingo, you need to kind of pick all that up, and then you know, analysing the data and making 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 probably have no idea what you’re looking at.

Michael 6:08
And that 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. Yeah, settings for keyword targeting or location targeting budget, it will, it will go horribly. There’s so much they blame Google ads.

Arthur 6:23
Yeah, there’s so much so much involved, you know, looking at search, query reports, adding, adding a negative keywords, things like that, to make sure that you’re getting the best bang for buck.

Michael 6:32
Yeah, so you had a little foray into Google ads a couple of years ago, how was it? How did you come through, um, stave, you miss it,

Arthur 6:39
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 nada, and be analytical in order to enjoy it. So I did enjoy it. But um, I prefer SEO, SEO, it’s just a little bit more, I feel creative. And, you know, there’s just, I just enjoy it more.

Michael 7:11
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. And

Arthur 7:19
there’s, you know, different, you know, the different pillars of SEO, so your link building, you’ve got your content, some people might be more technical. So there’s just more to it, I think.

Michael 7:27
Yeah. And I guess the analogy I like to use all the time is 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, no, you 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 the lingo. And all the rest of it, you know, you probably want to be focusing on more productive, bigger things, your business,

Arthur 8:02
if you have a bad experience, the first time you do it, if you’re running it yourself, you probably wouldn’t believe in it. So it’ll be you won’t trust the person that’s running it as well. Because you have that perception that it doesn’t work. You know, I’ve already tried it, I can spend 1000s of dollars and get anything from it. So

Michael 8:16
yeah. But you know, me like, you know, if you do a search for any of the commercial keywords in your space, and you see a tonne of advertisers there consistently, that tells you Google Ads does work, you just haven’t cracked the formula in your specific tech Exactly. But I’m looking Another con, I have 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 OSHA 70. But 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 labels, they try to hide the ads as much as possible. So they look like organic results. Yeah, 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 Yeah, people that don’t are still in the majority. Yeah. Is that fair to say? Like they’ll go down to the SEO results?

Arthur 9:14
Depends, I guess what they’re searching for, but I’d say most of the time.

Michael 9:18
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 past them and look for those glorious SEO results where Apple spends his time. So that’s cool. You know, you want to be present where your customers are, whether that’s ads or SEO, ideally,

Arthur 9:47
you have to you have an analogy for that one that’s like renting and buying a house.

Michael 9:50
Let’s do it. You can do it. With Google ads. You are renting the traffic. You know you turn off the you stop the ads you or your credit card expired. and you don’t realise it. Yeah, you have to stop. The traffic stops. And the new leads and sales stop. It’s like renting a house. Exactly. You don’t pay your rent. Yeah, it takes a bit longer to get kicked out of a rental house than it does to get kicked out of Google. So yeah, but the same principle, like you don’t pay your landlord, you will eventually get kicked out of that house.

Arthur 10:17
Yeah. Whereas SEO is like building a house and owning owning it. Yeah. I

Michael 10:21
mean, it’s like an asset for the long term 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. That’s very quick. But it goes both ways. Very quick to stop very quick to stop. The big one, though, that a lot of people say is Google ads just expensive? You know? What do you think about that?

Arthur 10:54
It is expensive.

Michael 10:56
You look very unimpressed with that.

Arthur 10:57
No, I am very impressed. It was 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. You 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 who 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 11:30
So that can be you know, as a business owner, that’s tough. You’re already battling with the Google ads. Yeah. Then you’ve got to create a landing page somehow. How do you even do that? Exactly. I know how, yeah, and I bet as a business owner, and then you’ve got to get the design, right. You get you got to get the copywriting on point sales, copywriters got to be strong. Do you know how to do that as a business owner? So those aren’t, you know, it’s not just Google Ads doesn’t just operate in its own silo? Like all of those factors play their their part?

Arthur 11:58
Yeah. There’s been picked like clients in the past where they would send traffic to an about us page. Yeah. No one’s gonna do anything. No one’s gonna convert. So

Michael 12:07
yeah. Even 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 strong? And then the follow up strong? And everything’s done well? Or do you just jot down like the customer’s details when they call you? And then say, I’ll call you back? And then forget to do it?

Arthur 12:31
Because I’m on a roof? Whatever? Yeah.

Michael 12:33
Sorry. I’m on the roof at the moment. Can you just call me back later?

Arthur 12:36
Your story that’s happened?

Michael 12:38
That is a true story right there. Yeah. So maybe we’ll give a bit of background about that story. We had one client, they air conditioning company. We were running Google ads for them driving lots of traffic. And we had call tracking setup. So we could tell when leads are 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 the business was also taking the calls while he was in the roof installing another system. And he would tell people, I look, I’m in a roof right now. Can you call me back later? He might have paid 15 or 20 bucks for that click, he’s got to lead someone that’s looking to buy an expensive product. Yeah. But the experience from a sales point of view is just abysmal. Exactly. They

Arthur 13:23
would have called a competitor and probably went with them purchase with them. Yeah,

Michael 13:27
exactly. And that, you know, can then make the business NSA Oh, this Google, that stuff doesn’t work. I’ve got no business from it. 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 back end of it are dialled in, they’re on point. It doesn’t matter, that it’s expensive that the cost of Google Ads becomes irrelevant, because the return on the back end is big. Yeah. So you know,

Arthur 14:00
it’s like that. It’s like that iceberg picture where you see the tip of the iceberg. And then yeah, everything below it. You know, Google ads is the tip of the iceberg. You have to also think about all the other stuff. I love

Michael 14:11
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 it. 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, ad 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. But let’s get out his favourite part. The SEO I’m gonna let you take over here and chat about some pros because I think you’re really gonna light up Am I you’d hope so. I can see you’ve laid off already has a smile on your face. I’m

Arthur 14:47
always smiling, always smiling. Okay, so SEO purrs. So I guess he kind of touched on this. More people tend to click on organic results of a 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 are in the traffic. So the traffic is gonna say anything.

Michael 15:21
Just know. I was nodding. Yeah. I’m just like, you’re in your element.

Arthur 15:26
just smiling

Michael 15:27
and just smile and nod, but you’re gonna chime in there? Well, look, you doing the traffic, and the upside of that traffic is

Arthur 15:34
unlimited. Well, unlimited to whatever the search volume is for the keywords. But yeah, essentially unlimited. Yeah.

Michael 15:40
So let’s let’s expand on that. Because like, let’s say Google ads. I’ll keep it real simple. Here, you have $1,000. 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 gonna get 100 clicks in a month. And then your budgets done? Yep. Your traffic’s done, your ads will stop until the next month. Exactly. Whereas with SEO, let’s say that in your space is 50,000 searches, 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 can keep on coming. So this makes the SEO channel really appealing because the more traffic you get to your site, yeah, if it’s designed, well, if it can’t be written, well copy written well, hopefully, it was written better than I can talk. But yeah, if the copywriting is strong, then that traffic is just more chances to convert. Right? Yeah,

Arthur 16:35
I guess a little disclaimer that would be like, in order to rank for those high volume keywords, it’s going to take time. So an investment investment, of course, yes. 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. 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

Michael 17:05
skyrocket and skyrocket. You sound like a digital marketing agency add to why we’re gonna open the floodgates and make your

Arthur 17:14
digital marketing agency set up. Make sense? But yeah, the traffic just skyrockets and then city’s revenue. So

Michael 17:21
yeah, it’s a great channel.

Arthur 17:23
It is a great channel.

Michael 17:24
The other good thing about the the traffic and the content stuff is you can go, I’m going to call it full intent. Yeah, the full intent funnel. So if you think about intent, like some people might be searching, coming back to that conveyancing example, what is the conveyancer that intent, there’s just informational. They’re just basically asking what is the conveyancer very, they’re not likely to convert, but there’s gonna 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 Dymo copywritten, 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 an infographic or an e book 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 out. And 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, they’re saying, you know, best conveyancing near me or conveyancer for two story properties and you believe or whatever, yeah, you can go after all of that traffic. Whereas in Google ads, most of the time you’re going after that bottom of funnel traffic’s or 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 it conveyance it exactly? So, this all the stuff we’ve just spoken about combined usually makes the ROI from SEO strongest in the long run, which he touched on before, right. Did I? Yeah, when you’re saying things skyrocket?

Arthur 19:02
Oh, sorry. 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 looking at all the clients that we work on in terms of revenue that the generate from organic and whatever the fees are, certainly is probably by far, a nice ROI.

Michael 19:18
Absolutely. Because of that unlimited upside like you because normally normally, not even normally, but your your investment. Let’s say you invest five grand a month in SEO. You do that for six months. Yep, you’ve invested 30 gramme, 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. Yeah. So you know, it’s consistent, but your traffic’s up your sales are up and you might stay 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. I’m just

Arthur 19:52
trying to think back to you know, clients and analytics and just my photographic memory to see that I can Yeah, once after a while. It’s not instant. But after a while, organic is usually the highest performing channel app that comes to things like organic revenue.

Michael 20:05
Yeah. Because the thing was 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 of a market will tolerate. Yep. So um, it’s very hard to you, it’s pretty much impossible to drive the level of ROI from Google ads that you can from SEO? Yeah. Because you got to think we’re talking about things like, um, 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 I came virus here, in the early days, read an article opted into an email list received all your emails was on Google ads, you really tried to focus on the buyers? Very true. So thank you. It’s very true. So um, the last one that we have just helps your brand perception? Yeah, the market just to be at the top right.

Arthur 20:57
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, you know, there’s a reason you’re there. So they might not necessarily know how SEO works. But they know that if you first organically, you’re probably trustworthy, that you’re an authoritative site, or whatever, in that space, which is why you’re number one,

Michael 21:20
you deserve to be there for Yes, lots of different reasons, really.

Arthur 21:24
So I guess most people know how Google works like probably on a very basic level, on a complex level, like we do, but they will know well enough to know that to be first that you’re obviously doing something right.

Michael 21:34
Yeah, you’re a real legit business. Yeah. So they’re the pros. We could talk all day about the pros, should have seen out the light out when we’re talking about them. But we’re gonna keep it simple. Gonna keep it top line, we’re going to move into the cons. Because there are a few cons about SEO, right? Yeah, if I gasp in horror, really cool. And cons. Okay, well, give us one give us a con.

Arthur 22:01
SEO is long term. So we kind of touched on that as well throughout this episode. But you can’t just switch SEO and on SEO on and expect results instantly. So depending on where you are, how long you’ve had your website, how much have you 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 22:37
it requires a bit of a stomach for it as well. Like, you’ve got to be okay with investing money each month, that much happening. And just trust in the long term.

Arthur 22:48
Yeah, process. 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 gonna 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 23:14
yeah, yep. But I guess Yeah. It’s a trust. It’s trust in the process. And I guess I would put as a con, if you’re working with the wrong, yeah, service, then you can be investing in it for a long time. And then the net result

Arthur 23:28
is trust in the person that’s doing SEO as well, you know, are they being transparent? You know, they, you know, giving you information? Are they answering your questions properly, you can usually tell pretty, pretty quickly if they’re good SEO or bad this year. So that plays a big part, trust in whoever’s running your campaign, have a look at you know, LinkedIn, have a look at the good experience. Awesome. If they’ve worked in any websites in the same niche or similar websites, you know, that usually helps and gives the client confidence to continue investing.

Michael 23:59
Yep. So with that 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. Yeah, a lot of people might start to seen it, like they hear about if you’re gonna do it straightaway. And it doesn’t normally go hand in hand with trying to grow a new fledgling business. No, 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 24:28
Or if you have the budgets, I mean, if you have if you have the budget to do it, yeah, it’s good to start. You don’t have to start.

Michael 24:34
Yeah, if you’re well funded as a business. Sure, it makes sense to invest in FDI. 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 though. A good salesperson should let them there. That is very true. A lot of SEO agencies will just sell SEO to anyone. Yeah, 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 lift at the FTO show.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 out the too much. I know. They are passionate Association.

Arthur 25:21
Yeah, exactly. So we’re supposed to be listing cons of SEO.

Michael 25:26
We’ve got one more eight. But we are very transparent about the world of SEO. And sometimes there are cons. The last one is definitely a con. algorithm updates. Hmm. That’s a con.

Arthur 25:37
Yeah. So I guess, you know, SEO is all happy days. And when things are going well, but there is a possibility that things can go pear shaped, you know, there’s, you know, things outside of anyone’s control, like algorithm updates that can shake things up. So the be ranking first and you know, generating heaps of traffic and heaps of general revenue, leads, whatever, that can turn off an instance. So you might be a big core algorithm update, you’ll find that you no longer ranking first. You’re you’re dropping off deeper into the search SERPs.

Michael 26:11
Yep. 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 other can’t keep up? Well, when when you own a house? Let’s say there’s a flood, or a hurricane or something, Hurricane cyclin. And it damages your house. And then you’ve got to do a bit of work to repair the house. And yeah, so to get it back to where it was. Okay. I just like so you know, like so it’s not with SEO, the you know, the upside is great and use traffic you own not rent, but sometimes there is a hurricane that comes in hurricane Google and shakes things up. Yep. And you do need to spend a bit of time getting yourself back to where you were before. And if you are 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. Yep, you will be impacted by these upheavals in the search results. Every so often. It’s unavoidable. But the upside of SEO so great, you know, the, the results that you can get from it are so great that you know, you can ride those waves normally. Yeah. 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. Yeah, definitely. Sometimes you can be blasted out of the search results. And yeah, and I but very rarely, but yeah, particularly these days, I don’t really seem to penalise sites as much, they just sort of discount stuff and

Arthur 27:34
not seen a site be completely removed from the search results in a very long time. At the very worst, I’ve seen them drop from position one, maybe two, page two or something depending on whatever the update was, but never have seen them just completely wiped out.

Michael 27:48
Yeah. So we’ll count that as a, as a con, you know, the updates on HANA is devastating. And

Arthur 27:55
it’s just about you know what, 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 game over, it just means you have to work a little bit harder to get back to where you were,

Michael 28:14
yeah, keep growing. It’s like any business no business grows like perfectly diagonally up into the right. It’s never

Arthur 28:21
linear. 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.

Michael 28:40
Yeah. Agreed. All right. Well, that is our chat about the SEO verse. Google ads. Battle Royale. You probably wondering, what’s the verdict? You know, after listing those pros and cons, you probably want to know what we think

Arthur 28:57
we’ve got here it and Boasberg I’m going to say SEO, you say SEO Narberth.

Michael 29:02
I say back, okay, don’t rely on any one channel. You should have multiple channels making up your digital marketing mix. You want to be present for those that click the ads. You want to be present for those by possum. Yep. Now we are the SEO show. So it’s obviously a channel we love. But any any business? That’s legit. That is a decent size that is established that is marketing itself properly. That serious about growing? Yeah. Should have a presence in paid media. Yeah, 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. Yeah, it’s just a must have. Yep. 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. No. So do both.

Arthur 29:46
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. And then you can start job ads, using it as a tool to kind of bridge bridge gaps, so to speak, hmm, and help drive more traffic and business to your site.

Michael 30:07
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 taking in, like, let’s say you’re an e commerce Store. And these products are doing really well in Google ads and shopping. Yeah, then maybe that’s what you focus on a few.

Arthur 30:21
Some people just want to earn a keyword, you know, they want to be first ads first, organically, they just want to be front and centre. So whenever anyone searches for that keyword, they want to be you know, first in their mind. Yeah. So

Michael 30:32
yeah. So after all of that the recommendation is or the verdict is both, you know, each channel has its place.

Arthur 30:41
Yeah, but if you have to choose one as

Michael 30:44
well, what if you’re nervous? 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 VSCO shows. So you know, everything we talked 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. But look, we weren’t we weren’t talking about that. Now. We are here to share. We’re gonna leave it at that. We will be back next week with another episode talking just about SEO no other channels after the face of leader has been lining up at every mention of a SEO pros today. Alright, that is the SEO show for this week. We’ll leave it at that. Both channels are good. Next break, we’ll be back to talk about justice to our favourite channel.

Arthur 31:35
Go us here.

Michael 31:37
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. Tata Ciao

Transcribed by https://otter.ai