SEO vs. PPC? SEO vs. PPC vs. AI? SEO vs. PPC vs. AI vs. (everything else)? I’ve been covering this question and its ever-changing answer for nearly 20 years.
The answer? It’s the classic SEO and marketing response: it depends.
It depends on the situation, goals, marketplace, keywords, year, location, SERP features, and myriad other variables, all working together to create utterly unique little marketing snowflakes.
When paid search is the better answer
I’ve run into this question with several clients over the last few months, and each had a different answer.
The first, an architect, ranked first for several seemingly important keywords. Their SEO agency celebrated the rankings, but they weren’t generating leads.
A quick look at the data explained why. They often ranked first organically, but only after four ads (many with sitelinks), a Find Results on Page feature, and four local listings, one of them paid. By the time users reached the organic results, they were about 20 links down the page.
Search Console told the rest of the story. These keywords generated roughly 300 searches a month with a click-through rate of about 1%. Three hundred searches. Three clicks. No wonder they weren’t seeing results.
With the data in front of us, the lack of leads wasn’t surprising. We shifted some budget from SEO to paid search, and performance improved quickly.
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When SEO is enough
The second client couldn’t have been more different. She’s a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood bereavement and trauma. She left an NHS post to build a private practice.
She works a few days a week, her clients come weekly for months at a time, and she needs only two or three quality inquiries each week to stay busy. Quality matters more than volume here.
We rebuilt the website, dug into customer needs, refined the content, and finished with straightforward on-page and local SEO.
The budget left no room for ads. Instead, we focused on a well-optimized Google Business Profile, a website that clearly and warmly explained what she does and who she helps, a handful of local citations, and relevant vertical citations.
It worked. She gained visibility in Maps, localized organic search, and AI results. Leads now come from both prospective clients and private referrals, enough to keep the practice full.
What made this interesting wasn’t the lack of competition. It was the type of competition. The ads were dominated by large, impersonal therapy directories. Positioning her as a local, experienced psychologist who could genuinely help made her stand out. A relatively small amount of traffic generated more than enough business.
The wrong…
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