On paper, the difference sounds simple: SEO is “free traffic” from Google; PPC is “paid traffic” from ads.
In reality, both require time, money, and patience in different ways.
One feels like planting a garden. The other feels like renting a billboard by the day.
In this guide, I’m going to walk you through the difference between the two in a way that actually maps to how small businesses work in real life.
A breakdown so you can make a decision that makes sense for your situation.
We’ll talk about:
- What SEO actually is for a small business – and what it realistically takes to see results.
- What PPC actually is – beyond “boosting a post” or running one-off Google Ads.
- How SEO and PPC feel different day to day – in cash flow, workload, and risk.
- When SEO usually makes more sense – and when you’re better off going paid first.
- How to combine both without burning out or overspending – a simple, realistic hybrid approach.
I’m a freelance SEO consultant, so yes, I’m biased.
But I’ve worked with businesses that should absolutely not start with SEO – and I’ve told them that.
I’ll be honest with you here too.
What SEO actually is
SEO is the work you do so that, when someone searches for something you offer, your website shows up in the unpaid results and earns the click. That’s the simple version.
Under the hood, it usually breaks down into a few big buckets:
- Keyword research – understanding what people type into Google when they’re looking for what you do.
- On-page SEO – structuring and writing your pages so they actually answer those searches.
- Off-page SEO – earning trust from other sites in the form of links, reviews, and mentions.
- Technical SEO – making sure search engines can find, crawl, and understand your site in the first place.
For a small business, this doesn’t mean doing everything at once.
It usually looks like:
Cleaning up the basics on your site. Finding a realistic set of keywords people use when they’re ready to talk to someone like you.
Writing or tightening a handful of pages that match those searches.
Getting some links, mentions, and reviews that tell Google you’re a real business, not just a landing page in the middle of nowhere.
The catch? SEO takes time. You don’t turn it on today and bank the results tomorrow. You’re building an asset that grows and compounds if you keep investing in it.
What PPC actually is
PPC – pay-per-click – is the opposite in terms of timing. Instead of earning your way into search results, you pay to appear where your customers already are: in Google search, on social platforms, sometimes on other websites.
With something like Google Ads, it normally looks like this:
- You choose the keywords you want your ad to show up for.
- You write the ads – the headlines and descriptions people see.
- You set bids and budgets – how much you’re willing to pay per click and per day/month.
- You choose who to target – location, demographics, interests (for social), etc.
You can get traffic the same day you launch a campaign. That’s the big appeal.
The trade-off is every click costs money.
When you stop paying, the tap turns off.
PPC is fantastic for testing offers, validating ideas, filling short-term gaps, and promoting things that won’t exist forever – like events, limited-time deals, or seasonal offers. It’s less great if your margins are thin and the cost per click in your industry is sky-high.
How SEO and PPC feel different when you’re running a business
If you strip away the technical details, this is what it feels like from a business owner’s point of view.
SEO feels slow at first. You put in the work – fix pages, create content, get your Google Business Profile in order – and for a while it looks like nothing is happening. Then, if you’ve targeted the right topics and done the right groundwork, traffic and leads start showing up more predictably.
The effort is mainly up front: strategy, site cleanup, content, and ongoing improvement.
PPC feels fast. You launch a campaign and can see clicks and enquiries the same week. You also see cost the same week. If a campaign works, you can lean into it. If it flops, you feel the pain in your wallet quite quickly.
The effort is more ongoing: constant tweaks, new ads, new audiences, new landing pages, and keeping an eye on cost per lead.
Neither is “better” in some universal sense. It’s a question of runway, risk tolerance, and how your business works.
Where SEO usually makes more sense for small businesses
SEO makes sense when you’re willing to treat your website like part of the core infrastructure of your business, not a brochure you set and forget.
It tends to be the right call if:
- People are already searching for what you do – “emergency plumber in Bristol”, “B2B SaaS SEO consultant”, “accountant for freelancers”. If there’s established demand in search, SEO gives you a way to tap into it over the long term.
- You’re not in an ultra-competitive national market where the first page is dominated by huge directories and household brands. You don’t need to win every keyword, just the right pockets of opportunity.
- You can afford to be patient and don’t need all your leads to come in this month to keep the lights on.
When it works, SEO gives you something PPC never will: a base of traffic and enquiries that isn’t tied directly to a daily ad spend. You still have to maintain it – update pages, improve content, keep your site healthy – but you’re not paying per click.
The trade-offs are real, though. SEO demands:
- Consistent effort – one blog post and a few title tag tweaks won’t change much.
- Some form of expertise – either yours, or a specialist you trust to guide you.
- A willingness to say no to the wrong keywords – the big, shiny phrases that everybody wants but very few small sites can realistically win early on.
If your budget is tight, your time horizon is at least 6–12 months, and your product or service solves problems people actively search for, SEO is almost always worth serious consideration.
Where PPC usually makes more sense
PPC makes sense when speed and control matter more than building something that compounds over time.
It’s usually the better starting point if:
Your business is new and you need enquiries now, not in six months.
Maybe you’ve just launched a new service.
Maybe you’re testing a market and want to know quickly whether people will buy.
Or maybe you’ve got a quiet period and need to ramp sales up.
It also works like a charm when you’re promoting something that won’t be around forever: a launch, a limited cohort, a seasonal offer.
By the time an SEO-driven page ranks for christmas tree sale, Christmas is already over.
And for some products, especially new or unusual ones, there simply isn’t enough existing search demand yet.
If nobody is searching for what you’ve built because it’s too new, SEO has nothing to work with.
In those cases, PPC on platforms where you can interrupt people – social, display, YouTube – will get you in front of the right audience long before organic search catches up.
The obvious downside? Cost.
In some industries – law, insurance, finance, to name a few – a single click can cost more than a decent lunch.
You need to know your numbers and be okay with the fact that you may lose money while you learn what works.
Common traps with SEO and PPC
Most of the horror stories you hear – “SEO didn’t work for us”, “we burnt thousands on Google Ads” – come from mismatches, not from the channels themselves being bad.
With SEO, the common pattern looks like this:
a vague strategy, no clear understanding of what people are actually searching for and why, content written for algorithms instead of humans, and then disappointment three months later when nothing happens.
With PPC, the pattern is: no real offer, no specific landing page, broad targeting, weak tracking, and a bill that grows while the leads don’t.
Both can work extremely well.
Both can drain money if they’re treated like levers you just “turn on”.
How to decide between SEO and PPC
Let’s get out of theory mode for a second.
Imagine you’re sitting across from me, and you tell me about your business.
There are a few questions I’d ask before I’d tell you where to start.
How urgent is your need for leads?
If you tell me you need new customers in the next 30 days or you’re in trouble, I’m not going to suggest an SEO-only plan.
You might still lay some SEO foundations in the background, but your primary lever is going to be something faster – PPC, partnerships, emailing your network, anything that gets you on the phone with real people quickly.
If you tell me you’re stable, you get some work from referrals, and you’re thinking 6 – 12 months ahead, then SEO starts to make a lot more sense as a core focus.
Is what you sell already in demand?
If you offer something people already know how to search for – roof repairs, saas copywriter or wedding photographer london – then SEO has something concrete to work with.
You can find those phrases, map them to pages, and build a structure around them.
If you’ve invented something people don’t have a name for yet, SEO can’t create that demand.
PPC, social, PR – those are better tools at the beginning because you’re introducing an idea, not capturing existing searches.
What’s your realistic monthly budget?
If you’re working with, say, £300 – £700 per month, trying to do both SEO and PPC at the same time often means you do both badly.
You’ll probably get further picking one and committing properly.
If you have more budget to test with and you’re comfortable with some trial and error, starting with PPC to learn which messages and offers resonate can pay off quickly.
What I sometimes do is I test keywords with PPC and apply those learnings to my SEO keyword strategy.
When it makes sense to start with SEO
In a lot of cases, the answer isn’t “SEO or PPC” – it’s “SEO now, PPC later” or “PPC now, SEO in the background.”
The order matters more than the label.
If you’re a typical small service business – accountant, tradesperson, therapist, local agency, consultant – a very common, very workable path looks like this:
- Phase 1: Fix the website basics. Clear offer, clear pages, clean internal structure. Get your Google Business Profile in order.
- Phase 2: Start publishing a small number of helpful, problem-focused pages that match how people search. Keep them updated – which ties in nicely with the logic behind updating your site for SEO over time.
- Phase 3: Once you’re getting some organic traffic and you know which keywords and services resonate, use PPC to amplify what already works instead of guessing from scratch.
By the time you start paying for ads, you’re not just throwing money at Google to see what sticks.
You have proven pages, proven services, and a clearer sense of who actually converts.
When it makes sense to start with PPC
In other cases, especially when you’re launching something new, PPC can be the scout that goes ahead while SEO catches up behind.
Maybe you’ve just opened a new location.
Maybe you’ve launched a product in a market where you’re not sure which angle will land.
Or maybe you’re in a space where competition is fierce and ranking will take a long time, but you still need to be in the game now.
In those scenarios, it’s completely reasonable to:
- Use PPC to test which messages, price points, and audiences respond.
- Pay attention to the search terms report – the actual phrases people type when they click your ads.
- Feed those learnings into your SEO – build pages that match the real language and problems your buyers are showing you.
Over time, you can reduce your reliance on ads because you’ve turned the PPC learnings into organic assets – pages with solid internal structure, clear intent alignment, and the kind of internal linking that helps Google understand how everything fits together.
So… SEO or PPC?
If you were hoping for a neat, one-line answer, I can’t give you one without lying. But I can give you this:
If you need leads this month and you have some budget to test with, start with PPC – thoughtfully, with clear offers and proper tracking.
Expect to learn, adjust, and pay for the privilege of learning quickly.
If you’re thinking beyond the next quarter and you sell something people search for, treat SEO as part of how your business works, not as a side project.
Build pages around real problems, choose your battles wisely, and be patient enough to let that work compound.
And if you can, don’t frame it as SEO versus PPC.
Frame it as:
- SEO for the foundation – the structure, content, and trust that makes you findable and credible over time.
- PPC for acceleration – the targeted bursts that help you test, launch, or scale what already works.
If you’re unsure where to start, or you’ve tried one of these before and it went badly, that doesn’t mean the channel is broken.
It usually just means the approach was.
Get the approach right, and both SEO and PPC can earn their place in your marketing – on your terms, at your pace, and in a way that supports your business, not the other way around.