PeakLeadsSEO and ads
SEO or Google Ads first? How South African trades should choose
Start with Google Ads if you need work this month, your website is brand new, or your work is mostly urgent call-outs that pay enough to cover the clicks. Start with SEO if the diary is full for now, your site already shows up on Google, your customers take months to decide, or your jobs are too small to carry paid clicks. Many trades end up running both, with ads paying for this month while the SEO builds, and money moving to whichever books a job for less.
SEO is the work that gets you into Google's free results and onto the map. Google Ads puts you in the sponsored results, and you pay each time someone clicks. This post is about which to pay for first, and when to shift money between them. Choosing between ad platforms is a separate question, covered in Google Ads vs Facebook ads for South African trades.
What decides whether SEO or Google Ads comes first?
Your diary, your website, the kind of work you do, and what a job pays against how much more you can take on. When they disagree, the diary usually wins.
| What you are weighing | Points to Google Ads first | Points to SEO first |
|---|---|---|
| How soon you need work | Gaps in the diary right now | Booked up for now |
| Your website | Brand new | Already showing up for some searches |
| The kind of work | Urgent call-outs, or a season starting | Big jobs people think about for months |
| Job value and capacity | Well-paid jobs, and crews with time free | Small jobs on thin margins, or no room for more work |
The diary wins because SEO cannot fill next week. Rankings for the searches that pay usually take months to build, while a search ad can show for "plumber Boksburg" as soon as Google approves it.
Your website matters to both, in different ways. A paid click lands on the page you choose, so ads can run off one good landing page. Organic visitors land wherever Google sends them, so SEO needs every service page to pull its weight. A new site also has to be found and indexed before it ranks for anything, which we cover in how a new website gets found on Google.
The kind of work decides how people search. Someone with water coming through the ceiling phones somebody tonight. Someone planning an extension can spend months reading and comparing. Seasonal searches arrive with the weather, whether your pages are ready or not.
An expensive click is still cheap if it wins a well-paid job, while on a small repair a few clicks that never call will eat the margin. And if your crews are flat out, hold the ad budget until they are not.
Should a plumber, a roofer or a builder start with SEO or Google Ads?
Four made-up businesses, and what we would tell each one.
Say you have just opened a plumbing business in Benoni. One bakkie, a new .co.za domain, nothing in the diary next week. Run Google Ads on burst geyser and blocked drain searches in the suburbs you can reach quickly, sent to a page built for those jobs. Set up your Google Business Profile and start the SEO alongside, but do not count on it to pay this month's bills.
Now take a roofer in Durban with a steady diary from years of referrals, and one slow web page that tries to cover everything. Reviews, people searching for the business by name and local sites that mention it give SEO something to build on. Fix the site first, with a page for each service and area, then do the SEO. Add search ads for re-roofs before the summer storms, once there is a page that can close them.
Say you install aircons in Pretoria, and it is September. Pages started this month are unlikely to rank before the first heatwave. Run search ads on installs and services through summer, note which searches book jobs, and build pages around those once it cools down. Ads now, SEO through the quiet months, so next summer some of that work comes without a click charge.
Last, say you build extensions and renovations in Somerset West, and your customers take months to decide. They read before they phone, so give them something to read: what drives the cost of an extension, how plans go through the municipality, finished projects by suburb. Keep ads to searches that sound ready to hire, and expect a click in September to become a call in the new year. SEO first, with a small and patient ad budget beside it.
Should you run SEO and Google Ads at the same time?
Usually, yes, because each covers the other's weak spot. Ads are quick but stop when the money stops. SEO is slow, but nobody charges you per click once it works.
Ads go live first on the jobs you most need, while the website and Business Profile are put right and the SEO work starts. As pages begin to rank for searches that book work, turn the ads down on those searches and watch whether the bookings hold. If they do, that money is free for something else.
The ads stay for what SEO is slow at: a new suburb, a new service, the start of a season, a quiet patch.
Do Google Ads help your SEO?
Not directly. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results, and that advertising with Google has no effect on how your site appears in them.
What ads give you is a list of searches worth ranking for. The search terms report in Google Ads shows the actual searches your ads appeared for and how each performed. Count calls from your ads as conversions, which Google Ads can do in South Africa through call reporting, and the report can show which searches made the phone ring. Check that against your job book and you get a fair idea of which searches booked work.
Google says the report helps you find ideas for landing page content. For a trade, it is an SEO brief you have already paid for. If "geyser replacement Kempton Park" keeps booking jobs, you have found a page to build. That is one way a site ends up with a page for each service and area. If "plumbing courses" keeps costing you clicks, make it a negative keyword and never write that page.
Google does leave some low-volume searches out of the report for privacy, so treat it as a guide, not a full list.
What has to be in place before either one works?
Both channels need the same three things in place before you spend a rand.
A page that turns a visit into a call. Ads and rankings send people to your site, but neither can make them pick up the phone. If your site cannot do that on a phone, start with the website.
Tracking that shows which channel booked each job. Count every call and form, note where each came from, and mark which became paid work. Conversion tracking in Google Ads covers the ads side. For the rest, asking "where did you find us?" on every call does more than most dashboards.
A Google Business Profile in order: verified, the right category, your service areas, photos of your own work and reviews you reply to. Google says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking, so the profile is SEO work. Google charges nothing to add or claim one, so the only cost is your time.
How do you know when to move money between them?
Work out what a booked job costs through each channel every month, and move money towards the cheaper one while it still has room to grow. Do not get excited about cheap clicks or a first-page ranking. If they do not turn into booked jobs, they are not worth paying for.
For ads, divide what you spent, management included, by the jobs booked from ad enquiries. For SEO, divide what the work costs each month, your own time included, by the jobs booked from the website and Business Profile without a paid click.
Expect the SEO number to look bad at first: you usually pay for months of work before the bookings show. Judge it on the trend across several months. Ads settle sooner.
Lean towards SEO when organic bookings rise and the cost per booked job on ads creeps up, and back towards ads when the diary thins out. Ads also have a ceiling, because no budget buys searches that nobody in your area makes.
Which does Peak Leads start with?
We do both, and on the call we will tell you which we would start with.
On Google Ads, campaigns are built around the jobs you want, landing pages are built to turn a click into a call, and tracking runs from the first click to the booked call, phone calls included. We tune the account weekly and report in plain English on what a lead costs and what a job costs to win.
SEO is scoped on the call, not sold off a shelf. The monthly report shows rankings, traffic and calls in plain English, with the month's work listed against them. Neither service comes with a lock-in contract, so if the numbers stop making sense, you can stop.
What should you do first?
Before you pay anyone, in this order:
- Open your website on your phone and count the taps it takes to start a call to you. If it is more than one, fix the page first.
- Set up tracking for calls and forms, and start a job book with a column for where each job came from.
- Check your Business Profile against the list above.
- If you need work this month, start one search campaign on your best-paying urgent job, in the suburbs you can serve. If you do not, start the SEO with pages for the jobs you most want.
- Every month, work out what a booked job cost through each channel, and let that decide where the next rand goes.