PPC (pay-per-click) advertising is ads that Google shows in response to what someone is searching for. Type “gutter installation cost”, and above the regular results you’ll see offers from installers. SEO is work on your website so it climbs in the regular results on its own. Ads bring in leads almost immediately, but only while you’re paying. SEO takes months to get going, but the results don’t vanish the day after you stop. Our short answer: most of the time it makes sense to start with Google Ads and get your site ready for SEO in parallel, while businesses with a physical location should set up their Google Business Profile right away.
What PPC advertising is, in plain English
Search ads respond to context: what surrounds a person at the moment they see the ad. That’s their search, the topic of the page they’re reading, their recent interests. You’re not shouting at everyone. You’re answering people who are already looking for your service or were recently thinking about it.
In Google, these ads run through Google Ads. So are Google Ads and PPC the same thing? Almost: PPC is a type of advertising, and Google Ads is the platform that serves it.
You usually pay for clicks, not impressions: you’re charged when someone actually visits your site. Google can also optimize for conversions, meaning leads, instead of clicks.
How PPC works
- You choose the searches you want to show up for and write your ads.
- Someone types a search, and in a fraction of a second Google runs an auction among the advertisers competing for it.
- Your position depends on your bid and your ad’s quality: how well it fits the search and how likely people are to click it.
- The person clicks and lands on your site, and the cost of the click is charged to your account.
We walk through setup step by step, with negative keywords, bid strategies and budget, in How to set up Google Ads.
What PPC ads look like in Google
In search, an ad looks like a regular result: a headline, a short text, your site’s address. What sets it apart is the “Sponsored” label. Often you’ll also see links to sections of the site, a phone number, an address and hours, sometimes prices and images. Ads appear above and below the regular results.
On the Google Display Network, an ad is a block with an image and text on websites and in apps. People see it not while searching but later: someone searched for gutter installation, and a day later they’re reading the news and see an installer’s ad. It’s still context, just based on recent searches and interests instead of the current search.
How Google Ads differs from SEO
Both bring people from Google, but they work differently. Ads are like renting a spot in the results: you pay as long as you stay. SEO is like building your own place: slow and with no guarantees, but what you build stays.
| What we’re comparing | Google Ads | SEO |
|---|---|---|
| First leads | Right after launch and ad review | Months later |
| What you pay for | Clicks | Work on your site |
| Cost per lead over time | Stays at auction level and rises with competition | High at first, falls as traffic grows |
| After you stop | Leads stop immediately | Traffic holds for a while |
| Predictability | Visibility is bought with bids | Nobody can guarantee rankings |
| What you need | A budget, a landing page, conversion tracking in GA4 | A multi-page site, keyword research, time |
Speed
Google Ads starts bringing in visitors as soon as your ads pass review. SEO is slower: Google has to find your pages, index them and figure out how useful they are to people. Noticeable shifts take months, and that’s an honest timeline, not a contractor dragging their feet.
Cost per lead over time
With ads, each new lead costs roughly what the last one did. If new competitors enter your market, leads get more expensive: it’s an auction. With SEO, you pay for the work on your site, not for each visitor. While there’s no traffic, a lead comes out expensive. Once the site gains search traffic, the same spending is spread over more leads, and each one costs less.
The channels also differ in whom they catch. Ads pay off with people ready to buy now. SEO also catches people who are still figuring things out. An example from the keyword research for the Russian-language version of this site: the Russian query for “what is PPC advertising” gets about 1,300 searches a month, while the one for ordering PPC services gets about 120. Ads on the first query would hardly pay off, but an article on your site can capture that demand, and some readers will come back later for the service.
What’s left after you stop
Turn off the ads, and leads stop the same day. Stop working on SEO, and rankings hold for a while, then slip gradually as competitors improve their sites. The pages, the content and the structure stay yours and keep working.
What SEO involves and why it’s never fast, we covered in SEO explained.
PPC vs. social media ads: what’s the difference
Search ads respond to demand: the person is looking for the service or was recently. Social media ads create demand. They’re shown to people who fit a profile, such as age, location and interests, even if they aren’t looking for anything right now.
That’s why they’re used differently. Search ads are great for services people look for out of necessity: the car broke down, you need a lawyer, it’s time to renovate. Social ads suit things people buy after seeing them in their feed: clothing, decor, entertainment, plus new products people don’t know about yet and so don’t search for.
So is Google Ads search advertising or targeted advertising? Mostly search. The Display Network and YouTube do offer interest-based audiences that resemble social targeting, but they rely on what people have searched for and browsed. We don’t run social media ads ourselves; our marketing work is Google only. But it’s important to understand the difference so you don’t compare channels by cost per click: they do different jobs.
Google Ads or Google Business Profile: which is better
Both help you show up in Google, but they’re built for different situations.
Google Business Profile is your free listing on Google Maps and in search: address, hours, photos, prices, reviews. It’s made for local businesses. A complete profile can show up in map results without any ad spend, and you can link it to Google Ads so your ads show your address. There’s little to configure, but you also have less say over which searches you show up for.
Google Ads is a full advertising account. You choose the searches and the negative keywords, write the ads, set the bid strategy and see a report for every search. It takes more effort to learn, but you’re in control.
What to choose:
- A place people visit at an address: a café, a salon, an auto repair shop, a neighborhood store. People choose by the listing: rating, reviews, photos, directions. Start with your Business Profile.
- You have a website and several services, leads come in online or by phone, and you serve a city or the whole country. You need Google Ads.
- Often, both work best. Fill out your Business Profile in any case; it’s free. And Google Ads brings people looking for a specific service to your site.
How we work with Business Profiles and local ads is covered on our Google Business Profile page.
Where to start: a quick guide
| Your situation | Where to start |
|---|---|
| You need leads this month | Google Ads on Search: it works as soon as your ads pass review |
| A café, salon or repair shop that people visit at an address | Google Business Profile |
| One service and a landing page | Google Ads: a single page doesn’t pull in much search traffic |
| A new site you plan to run for years | Google Ads now, SEO in parallel |
| Many services or a large catalog | A site structure built for SEO, plus Google Ads for your best sellers |
| You get traffic but no leads | A website audit first: new visitors will run into the same problems |
| Almost nobody searches for your service | Check demand in Keyword Planner: neither ads nor SEO can create demand that isn’t there |
The honest takeaway
Our working plan for getting started:
- Google Ads on Search. It brings in leads now and shows which searches actually sell. The search terms report is a ready-made brief for SEO: which pages to build first.
- SEO in parallel. Site structure, keyword research, content, speed. Results take months and nobody can guarantee rankings, but over time search makes you less dependent on your ad budget.
- Google Business Profile for businesses with an address. A complete profile with photos, prices and replies to reviews works like a second website: people use it to decide where to go.
- GA4 with conversions everywhere. Without it, you can’t compare channels: you see how much you spent, but not what a lead from each channel costs.
Which mix fits you depends on your industry, location and budget. We start with a review: we look at demand in Keyword Planner, the search results for your keywords and what you already have. Then we suggest what to launch now and what to prepare for later, and set up GA4 so you can see where every lead came from.
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