SEO, search engine optimisation, earns a place in the unpaid results more slowly and does not charge per visit once it is earned. Most businesses need both. The order depends on how soon you need enquiries and how much each one is worth.
Read from Google's Keyword Planner on 31 October 2026, the high end of the UK top-of-page bid range ran from £0.68 to £74.20 across 62 common commercial searches. These are Google's bid estimates, not billed costs. UK Google Ads costs, 2026.
SEO and PPC compared
| PPC | SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Ads can show the day a campaign goes live | Months, with no fixed timetable |
| How you pay | Per click, for as long as you advertise | For the work, not per visit |
| Control | You choose the searches, the message and the page | The search engine chooses what ranks |
| When you stop | The traffic stops with it | Rankings fade slowly rather than at once |
| What it teaches you | Exactly which searches turn into enquiries | Which topics earn attention without paying for it |
| AI answers | Paid placements exist in some AI products | The same groundwork makes a site readable to AI systems |
Choose PPC first when
- You need enquiries this month, not next year.
- You are testing whether a new service or area has demand before investing in content for it.
- The searches that matter are dominated by large competitors you cannot outrank soon.
Choose SEO first when
- Clicks on your key searches cost more than an enquiry is worth to you.
- Your buyers research for weeks before they buy, and read before they enquire.
- The site has technical problems that would waste paid clicks anyway: slow pages, missing information, forms that fail.
Why they work better together
PPC's search terms report shows which exact searches produce enquiries. That is the best research an SEO plan can start from, and it costs nothing extra once the ads are running. In return, a site improved for SEO usually converts paid clicks better, because the pages are clearer and faster.
In AI search the line blurs further. The same structured, readable site that ranks in search is the one an AI system can read and name, and paid placements are arriving inside AI products too: OpenAI now shows ads in ChatGPT to some of its users, in markets that include the UK.