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Google Ads bring enquiries within days of going live, but they stop the moment you stop paying. SEO, the work that gets you found without paying for each click, takes months to start bringing enquiries, but the pages keep working after the work is done. Most local businesses should get their website and Google Business Profile right first, use Google Ads to fill the diary while that work builds, and then cut ad spend in the places where they are already found for free.
What is the difference between SEO and PPC?
PPC (pay per click) means paying Google each time someone clicks your ad, and for a local business that almost always means Google Ads. SEO means doing the work that makes Google show your business in the free results, so the clicks cost nothing.
When someone near you searches for what you do, there are usually three places your business can appear:
- The ads at the top of the page, marked as ads. You pay for each click.
- The map results, the list of local firms with a map, taken from Google Business Profiles. These are free.
- The ordinary results below, the list of websites. These are free too.
Google keeps the paid and free parts apart. Its guide for site owners says "Google never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results", and that "Advertising with Google won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results" (checked on 12 November 2026). For the map results, Google's Business Profile help page, checked the same day, is just as plain: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."
Say Kemi runs a three-person electrical firm in Nottingham. Ads are the only one of those three places she can buy her way into. The other two she has to earn, with a complete Business Profile, reviews, and a website that has a page for each service and area she covers.
How fast does each one bring enquiries?
Google Ads can bring enquiries in the first week. Once the ads are approved they can show on the next search, and Google.s help page says "There's no minimum spending commitment, and you set and control your own budget" (checked on 12 November 2026).
SEO is slower. Google's own UK article comparing the two, checked on 12 November 2026, says "It can take months, or years to see significant ranking improvements and traffic increases." A local firm with a working website and some reviews often sees the first enquiries from new service and area pages within a few months; a brand new business spends those months on groundwork.
Which costs less over time?
Ads cost about the same for each enquiry every month, because every click goes through a new auction. SEO costs more for each enquiry at the start, when pages are being built and few people find them, and less once those pages are found, because the visits cost nothing.
Here is Kemi's sum for ads. Our guide to Google Ads costs puts a click for "electrician near me" at about seven pounds in the UK, going by Google's own estimates in October 2026. If Kemi spends six hundred pounds a month on clicks, she buys about 85 clicks. If one visitor in ten calls or fills in the form, that is eight or nine enquiries a month, or about seventy pounds each.
In year two, the same six hundred pounds buys the same enquiries again, if click prices hold. For the free results, the sum works the other way round. Say Kemi pays for a set of service and area pages and keeps paying the same amount for upkeep. If those pages bring two enquiries in month three and twelve in month twelve, the cost of each enquiry falls to a sixth of what it was, without the spend changing. The figures are made up to show how the sum works.
| Google Ads | SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| First enquiries | Days after the ads go live | Usually a few months |
| Cost of each enquiry | Roughly flat, and rises if click prices rise | High at the start, falling as pages are found |
| What you pay for | Each click, every month | The work: pages, profile, reviews, upkeep |
| What you own afterwards | The account and its data | The pages, the profile and the reviews |
| If you stop paying | Ads stop the same day | Pages keep working, and slip slowly if neglected |
| Control over where you appear | High: you pick the searches, area and hours | Low: Google decides, and no one can pay for a place |
For what SEO work costs and what each price buys, see how much SEO costs in the UK. The nine UK agency pages we checked for that guide put most small businesses between five hundred and two thousand five hundred pounds a month.
What happens when you stop paying?
When you stop Google Ads, the enquiries from ads stop straight away. Google's help page on pausing campaigns, checked on 12 November 2026, says pausing "stops your ads from showing to audiences and prevents you from accruing further charges." Nothing you paid for keeps working, except what you learned.
When you stop paying for SEO, the pages stay up and keep being found for a while. They slip if competitors keep improving and you do not, or if your reviews go quiet. The fall is slow, though, which is why owners on forums describe ads as "a tap" and the free results as something that "raises your floor".
That matters most when cash is tight: a firm already found for free can cut ad spend in a quiet month and still hear the phone.
Which should you start with?
It depends on how soon you need the work and how full the diary is. This table covers the situations we see most often.
| Your situation | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The diary is empty this month | Google Ads | Only ads bring enquiries this week |
| New business, no reviews, no website history | Google Ads, while you build the profile and pages | You will not appear in the free results for months |
| Booked up for weeks ahead | SEO | Ad money buys enquiries you cannot take |
| Emergency work (boilers, leaks, lockouts) | Both | People call the first firm they see, so the top of the page matters every day |
| Planned work worth thousands (extensions, kitchens, roofs) | SEO first, ads for the gaps | People compare firms, read reviews and come back |
| Clients who pay every month for years (accountants, cleaners, care) | Both, with ads judged on what a client is worth over years | One client can pay for a lot of clicks |
| Tight budget, no tracking set up | The website and Business Profile | Both channels waste money on a page that does not turn visitors into calls |
Whether ads pay for your firm comes down to one sum: what a client is worth against what it costs to win one through clicks. Our guide to whether Google Ads are worth it works that sum through step by step. For the same question about SEO, read is SEO worth it for small businesses.
Some trades have a third route. Google's Local Services Ads charge for a call or message rather than a click, and are open to many UK trades. They sit alongside both, and do not replace the free results.
How do Google Ads and SEO work together?
They help each other in three ways.
Ads show you which searches turn into jobs. Within a few weeks of running ads with call and form tracking, you know which searches bring paying work and which bring time-wasters. That tells you which service and area pages to build next for the free results, instead of guessing.
The same page serves both. A page for "rewiring in West Bridgford" that loads fast, shows reviews and puts the phone number at the top turns more ad clicks into calls. It also gives Google a reason to show it in the free results. Money spent on that page pays twice.
You can appear in more than one place. Google's help page on local ads, checked on 12 November 2026, says ads linked to your Business Profile can show in Google Maps as well as in the search results. Showing in all three places for the same search takes up more of the page than any single rival.
Once the free results bring steady enquiries for a service or an area, cut ad spend there and move it to where you are not yet found.
What we would do first
We do both, and our view is to start with what both depend on: a website with a page for each service and area that turns visitors into calls, and a complete Google Business Profile with a steady flow of reviews.
Then run Google Ads where the diary needs filling now, with every call and form counted from day one, and move ad spend away from searches you win for free as that work arrives. If the website is the weak link, our page on websites that bring in enquiries explains how we build them. Our guide to Google Ads for small businesses covers setup, budgets and tracking in full.
Common questions
Does PPC improve SEO?
No. Google says advertising with it "won't have any effect on your site's presence in our search results." Ads help indirectly: they show which searches turn into paying work, so you know which pages to build next, and a page that turns ad visitors into calls also tends to do better in the free results.
Is PPC just Google Ads?
PPC means any advert where you pay for each click. Google Ads is the one most local firms mean, because most searches for local services happen on Google. Microsoft Advertising, which shows ads on Bing, works the same way and reaches fewer people. Facebook ads are paid too, but reach people who are not searching.
Is SEO better than paid ads?
Neither is better in general. SEO usually costs less for each enquiry after the first year, and keeps working if you stop paying. Paid ads bring enquiries within days and let you choose exactly which searches, areas and hours you appear for. The better question is which your business needs first, which depends on how full the diary is and what a client is worth.
Can a beginner do SEO for a local business?
Yes, the first steps. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, ask every happy customer for a review, and write one page for each service and area you cover, saying what you do, where, and how to book. That is the groundwork any agency would bill for in month one. Paid help earns its fee in crowded cities and on technical website problems.
What to do this week
Search for your main service and your town on your phone. Note which of the three places you appear in, and who does. If you appear nowhere and the diary is thin, ads are the quick fix while you build the rest. If you already show in the map results, put the effort into reviews and service pages first, and keep ads for the gaps. Either way, set up call and form tracking before you spend a pound, so that in a month you are deciding from your own numbers.