You have £500 a month to put into getting found online. Do you buy ads and get seen tomorrow, or invest in SEO and own the traffic later? Here is how we actually advise clients, because the honest answer is not always the one that sells our services.
What £500 buys in Google Ads
Speed and precision. Your ad shows the day the campaign launches, for exactly the searches you choose, in exactly the postcodes you serve. For a local service business, £500 a month is a workable budget: enough for a few dozen clicks a week on high-intent searches like emergency plumber Brentwood or accountant Colchester.
The catch: the moment you stop paying, you vanish. Ads rent attention. And clicks in competitive trades can run £3 to £15 each, so a weak landing page or sloppy targeting burns the budget before it teaches you anything. £500/mo is our minimum recommended ad spend for exactly this reason.
What £500 buys in SEO
Assets. On-page fixes, a proper Google Business Profile, reviews flowing, and two genuinely useful posts a month answering what your customers search. Nothing dramatic happens in month one. By month six, you are ranking for searches you are not paying per click for, and that traffic does not stop when the budget pauses.
The catch: it is slow, and the early months feel like shouting into the void. SEO is also unforgiving of shortcuts. Bought links and spun articles get sites buried, and recovery takes longer than starting clean.
The decision rule we use
- ▪Need enquiries this month? Ads. Nothing else is that fast.
- ▪In a trade where one job pays for months of marketing? Ads first, SEO alongside as soon as budget allows.
- ▪Building for the next three years, not the next three weeks? SEO. Owned traffic compounds, rented traffic stops.
- ▪Selling something people search for rarely but buy carefully (high value, long decisions)? SEO and content, because the research phase is where you win.
- ▪Tight budget, brand new business? Google Business Profile first, it is free, then ads for immediate demand while SEO builds.
The answer nobody wants
Long term, it is both, because they cover each other's weakness: ads fill the gap while SEO matures, SEO lowers your dependence on ads as it grows. But if £500 is genuinely the whole budget, start where your timeline points. Fast need means ads. Patience means SEO. Either way, spend it on something you can measure, and check the numbers monthly.