The difference in plain terms
Search for "air conditioning installer Perth" on google.com.au and you will see listings marked "Sponsored" at the top, and often at the bottom, of the page. Those are pay-per-click ads: businesses bid in an auction and pay Google each time someone clicks. Everything else on the page, including the map results and the regular listings, is organic. Google ranks those on its own assessment of relevance and quality, and no one can pay for them.
So the choice is not between two versions of the same thing. PPC is renting visibility: precise, fast and controllable, for as long as you keep paying. SEO is building it: slower and less predictable at the start, but an asset that keeps working when you stop spending on clicks. The question is not which is better in general, but which fits your situation now.
SEO and PPC side by side
The table compares the two on the points that usually decide the budget conversation.
| SEO (organic search) | PPC (Google Ads) | |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | For the work: strategy, content, technical fixes, outreach | For each click, set by an auction, plus management |
| Speed | Builds over months | Traffic can start within days of launch |
| When spending stops | Visibility fades gradually, if at all | Traffic stops almost immediately |
| Control | Indirect: you influence, Google decides | Direct: you choose keywords, budget, locations and timing |
| Targeting | Broad, by topic and intent | Precise, by keyword, suburb radius, device, time of day and audience |
| Trust | Many searchers trust organic results more | Clearly labelled as sponsored |
| Testing | Slow to test messages or offers | Fast feedback on which offers and pages convert |
| Best for | Long-term visibility, research-heavy purchases, reducing reliance on ads | Launches, seasonal demand, urgent services, testing |
When Google Ads should come first
- A new business or new website. SEO will take months to gain traction. Ads can bring enquiries while organic visibility builds.
- Seasonal or time-bound demand. An air conditioning installer before summer, an accountant in the weeks around the end of the financial year on 30 June, a retailer for a Boxing Day sale. Ads can be switched on for the peak and scaled back afterwards.
- Urgent services. When someone needs an emergency locksmith or a burst pipe fixed at night, they call one of the first options they see. Ads place you there while SEO catches up.
- Testing an offer. Before investing in a full SEO program for a new service, ads can show within weeks whether people search for it and whether your page converts.
- Very competitive organic results. If the organic results are dominated by large national brands, ads may be the only realistic way to appear for some searches in the short term.
When SEO is the better long-term investment
- Considered purchases. People choosing a builder, a family lawyer, a financial adviser or a cosmetic dental treatment research for weeks. Organic guides and strong service pages meet them at every stage, not just the final click.
- Expensive clicks. In sectors where each click is costly, such as legal services, a durable organic presence can reduce the cost per enquiry over time.
- Steady demand. If people search for your service all year, an asset that keeps working is worth more than visibility you rent month by month.
- Trust-led markets. Health, legal and financial decisions favour businesses that show expertise through substantial content. Note that rules such as Ahpra's advertising requirements for health practitioners apply to your website and ads alike.
- Reducing dependence. A business that gets all its enquiries from ads is exposed to rising click prices and account problems. Organic visibility spreads the risk.
What each channel really costs
Neither channel is free. With PPC the cost is visible: the price of each click is set by an auction and varies widely by industry, location, competition and the quality of your ads and landing pages. Add management time or fees, and the cost of building pages that convert. Our guide to what Google Ads costs explains the drivers.
With SEO the cost sits in the work: strategy, content written with real expertise, technical improvements and earning authority. Clicks from organic results carry no fee, but getting there takes investment and patience. Our guide to what drives the cost of SEO explains how to judge a proposal.
The useful comparison is not cost per click but cost per enquiry, and how that changes over one, two and three years. PPC tends to stay roughly level as long as competition does. Good SEO tends to cost more per enquiry at first and less over time.
Three questions to decide
- How soon do you need enquiries? If the answer is this month, PPC has to be part of the plan. If you are building for the next few years, SEO deserves the larger share.
- How do your customers buy? Urgent, one-step decisions suit ads. Long, research-heavy decisions suit organic content that answers questions along the way.
- What happens when you stop? If turning off ads would leave you without enquiries, that dependence is a risk worth addressing with SEO.
Why the two work better together
Running both is not double spending when they are planned together. Search terms data from Google Ads shows which phrases actually lead to enquiries, which helps decide which organic pages to build first. Good landing pages improve both your ad performance and your organic conversion. Appearing in both the sponsored and organic results for an important search increases the chance a searcher chooses you.
Over time the balance can shift. Where your organic visibility becomes strong for a particular search, you can test reducing ad spend on it and redirect budget to searches where you do not yet rank. A well-built landing page serves both channels.
SEO vs Google Ads vs AI search
AI Overviews in Google and assistants such as ChatGPT and Perplexity add a third route to customers. They often answer the question before anyone clicks, and they tend to draw on content that is clear, specific and from businesses described consistently across the web. That favours businesses with strong organic foundations. Google also shows ads within some AI experiences, so paid search does not disappear. Our guide to AI search optimisation explains how to prepare.
Choosing who runs your SEO and PPC
Whether you use one provider or two, the people running each channel need to talk to each other and to share data. Ask any provider how they will measure enquiries rather than just clicks or rankings, who owns the accounts (it should be you), and how the budget split will be reviewed. Our SEO agency and Google Ads agency pages explain how we approach each.