For many entrepreneurs, especially those who have no experience working with the Google search audience, the question mentioned in the title is a natural question. Further in the article, we will also consider possible scenarios.
New business
If you have started a new business, you should try to meaningfully fill all the marketing channels where there could be a potential target audience. It’s not even just about Google, it’s about any other marketing channel as well.
When it comes to Google, the most common mistake entrepreneurs make is not thinking about getting Google organic traffic at all when they start their business. Launches Google Ads, thus quickly and predictably reaching the target audience and thinking about the organic visitor after a year or even many years when looking for new marketing opportunities.
But Google organic visitors can be obtained by long-term SEO optimization of the homepage. Therefore, the sooner you start thinking about it, the sooner the time will come when you can enjoy the fruits, read natural Google visitors.
Speed factor
If the goal is to reach the Google audience quickly, then clearly Google Ads will be the primary tool with which to reach potential customers. Here everything is simple and understandable – you pay Google for ads, a commission for the work of a digital marketing agency and receive website visitors immediately, immediately and as much as you want or the budget allows.
When performing SEO optimization, nothing will happen quickly – it will take at least a few months when you can feel the flow of visitors from the Google search engine, but the real benefit can only be assessed after a longer period of time. So, if it is very important to get visitors right away – you should focus on Google ads, not forgetting about SEO, if the business is a long-term project.
What about the cost?
So clear – if the business is short-term, then you don’t even need to think about Google natural visitors. If, however, the business will be long-term, as mostly everyone thinks or at least hopes, then right from the first day, already in the process of developing the website, you should think about Google’s natural visitor. Because in order to get to the top positions in Google search, which is not advertising, you need to think about:
- Homepage quick actions
- Navigations
- Content structures
- For internal links
- Keyword strategies
- Creating external links
Interest in doing cost comparisons for one of our client’s projects. The client sells training courses on the Internet and from the very beginning thought about both the Google organic traffic flow and the use of Google ads.
We took the indicators of 3 months as a reference point. As you can see in the image above, during this time Google Ads (Paid Search) generated 8,387 visits resulting in 368 sales totaling $21,880. Organic traffic, on the other hand, brought in 4,768 visitors who made 44 purchases worth $2,873.
The average CPC in this industry was ~$0.50, which means about $4,200 was spent on advertising.
The SEO service plan in cooperation with the agency is 500 EUR per month, so 1500 USD was spent during this period. It should be noted that the natural visitor is just starting to develop and on average its volume grows by 10-15% per month, without changing the amount of the service.
At this point, $1 spent on Google ads brings in $5.2, while $1 in organic traffic brings in $1.9. At the initial stage, Google ads are more profitable, but in the long term, this can quickly change in favor of organic traffic, which most often happens.
Both tools are good for different purposes, but a combination of both of these Google marketing services will be best for long-term businesses.
Digital marketing agency MMN provides various Google services – implementation of Google Analytics, SEO services and Google Ads advertisements.
