Ads or SEO first? The honest answer depends on one thing

Not your industry, not your budget. Whether you need customers this month or customers in two years — and most businesses need both, in an order.

By Sean

The question behind the question

Nobody actually wants ads or SEO. They want the phone to ring. The two answer different versions of that: SEO answers "how do we still get customers in two years", ads answer "how do we get customers this month".

If the pipeline is empty now

Start with Google Search, on the handful of terms that mean somebody is ready to buy today. Organic takes three to six months to move; an ad campaign is live the day after it is approved. That gap is the whole argument.

If the pipeline is fine and you want it to compound

Start with technical SEO and the pages that answer real searches, because ads stop the day you stop paying and a page that ranks carries on earning. Run a small ad budget alongside it anyway — the search-term report tells you, in your customers’ own words, what the SEO plan should be about.

The answer almost nobody gives you

If a click costs €4 and your average order makes €9, paid search will not work no matter who runs it. That is worth knowing before you spend a month finding out, and it is the kind of thing we would rather say in the first call than in month three.

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