SEO or paid ads: where should your first pound go?
Scott Hough
Founder, Maison Digital
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It's the question every business owner asks eventually: should we be doing SEO or paid ads?
The honest answer is usually "not yet". Both send people to your website. If the website, the offer or the tracking isn't ready, you're paying to send more people to a problem.
What each one is good at
Paid ads are fast. Switch them on today and you can have visitors by this afternoon. Switch them off and the visitors stop. You're renting attention.
SEO is slow. It takes months to build. But once a page ranks, it keeps bringing in visitors without you paying for each one. You're building an asset.
Most businesses need both in the end. The question is the order.
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The order we'd spend in
1. The offer. If buyers can't see why you're different, more traffic just means more people comparing you on price.
2. The website. A site that explains that difference clearly, loads fast and makes the next step obvious.
3. The tracking. A CRM and reporting set up so you can see which enquiries became revenue. Without it, you can't tell whether any channel is working.
4. SEO. Start building the long-term asset, aimed at the searches closest to a sale.
5. Paid ads. Now every pound is going to a page that converts, and you can measure exactly what it brings back.
Infrastructure first, then channels, then paid spend.
When ads should come first
There are exceptions. If you've got a launch with a date on it, or you need to test an offer quickly, ads give you an answer in days, not months. Just make sure the page they land on is ready, and that you're tracking what happens next.
The short version
Don't ask SEO or ads. Ask whether you're ready for either. Fix the offer, the site and the tracking first, and both will work harder when you switch them on.
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