Imagine you run a physiotherapy clinic in Girona and opened a second practice last month. A sales rep promises that Google ads will fill your diary by next week. A friend who owns a restaurant tells you that's throwing money away and that what works is ranking well without paying. They're both partly right, which is why the question of whether you need SEO or Google Ads can't be answered with a plain "it depends". It depends on three things you can check today: how long you can wait, how much a new customer leaves you and how they search for you.
SEO or Google Ads: the difference in two sentences
With Google Ads you pay for each click to appear at the top of the search, in the results labelled "Sponsored". With SEO you work on your website and your Google profile to appear in the organic results, the ones you don't pay for per click.
Search advertising is also called SEM, so if someone asks you "SEO or SEM?", it's the same question. And they are two separate queues: according to Google's guide to how Search works, Google doesn't accept payment to rank a site higher. Spending more on ads won't lift you in the organic results, and ranking first organically won't get you a discount on ads.
How each one works
Google Ads: an auction on every search
Every time someone searches, Google decides which ads appear and in what order. The Google Ads help page on the ad auction puts it like this: it isn't like an art auction, where the highest bidder always wins, because the quality of the ad counts too. That's why two businesses can pay different prices for the same click, and one can rank above the other while bidding less.
You set the budget, the ads go live as soon as the campaign is active and Google approves them, and the day you stop the campaign you disappear from those positions.
SEO: work that builds up
SEO has three parts: making sure Google understands your website (speed, structure, mobile version), having pages and articles that answer what your customers search for and, if you serve a specific area, keeping your Google profile and reviews in good shape. No position can be bought: Google itself, on its page about whether you need an SEO, warns that no one can guarantee a number one ranking.
In return, what you gain stays. The first movements usually show after two or three months, and solid results between six and twelve. We go through it month by month in how long SEO takes to work.
When to start with Google Ads
Ads are the tool for today. They make the most sense in these cases:
- You're opening a business or launching a website. A new site has no history and will take a while to rank organically; ads bring activity from the first month.
- People search for you in a hurry. Locksmiths, plumbers, garages or emergency vets: whoever searches today hires today, and usually calls the first one they see.
- Your work is seasonal. On the Costa Brava, a business that lives off the summer can switch the campaign on in May and off in September.
- You want to test a new service. Before writing ten articles about something, a few weeks of ads tell you whether people search for it and whether they get in touch.
- You have an offer with a deadline. A promotion that ends on the 30th can't wait for SEO to kick in.
There's one condition: the click has to land on a page about what you're advertising, and enquiries have to be measured. Otherwise the campaign spends and you don't know on what. We explain it in detail in why Google Ads spends and doesn't sell.
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When to start with SEO
- People search for you all year round. If searches for what you do don't depend on the season, every month of SEO work adds to the last.
- Your customers compare before deciding. Nobody hires a builder, a lawyer or a management system on the first click. That customer reads, compares and comes back, and articles that answer their questions stay with them all the way.
- Clicks are expensive in your sector. The more businesses bid on the same search, the more it costs to appear in the ads. That's where SEO usually pays off sooner.
- You serve a specific area. Local SEO, the kind that covers your Google profile and searches like "physiotherapist in Girona", is usually the first thing to move.
- Your budget is tight. A well-ranked article keeps bringing visits without charging you for each one; an ad stops working the day the money runs out.
SEO or Google Ads: what each one costs
They're two very different bills. With Google Ads there are two parts: what you pay Google for the clicks, which you decide, and the work of setting up, reviewing and adjusting the campaign. In our plans, Google Ads and Meta Ads management comes in from Mid Presence, €750 a month; you pay the ad spend separately and always know how much it is.
With SEO you pay for the work, not the visits. Basic Presence, €400 a month, includes three articles a month on your website, three on your Google profile, replies to every review, positioning in AI answers and hosting. All prices are on our pricing page, excluding VAT and with no minimum contract. If you just need a page to receive the clicks from your ads, there's a single-page landing for €100 a month.
Do the maths before choosing between SEO and Google Ads
Before deciding, do this sum with your own business figures. To show how it works, let's use round numbers: if each click costs you €1.50 and one in twenty visitors gets in touch, each enquiry costs you €30. If you close one in three enquiries, each new customer has cost you €90 in ads.
Now look at what that customer leaves you. If a first session leaves you €40 of margin and the patient doesn't come back, the campaign loses money on every sale. If the customer stays for a year or the job leaves you €600, the same campaign is good business. With SEO the sum works the other way round: in the first months you pay without seeing a return, and from then on each visit from Google costs you nothing extra.
What each one won't give you
It's worth knowing before you start, so you don't ask either channel for something it can't deliver:
- Google Ads doesn't build anything. When you stop the campaign, you disappear from those positions and keep no ranking you've earned.
- Google Ads won't get you recommended. Paying for Google ads doesn't make an AI like ChatGPT or Gemini mention you; that depends on what's written about you on your website and elsewhere.
- SEO has no fixed date. You can know what will be done each month, but not the exact day you'll reach the top.
- SEO won't fix a website that doesn't convince. If the page doesn't explain clearly what you do or lacks a clear button to contact you, more visits won't turn into more customers.
How to combine SEO and Google Ads without paying twice
For most local businesses the answer isn't choosing one but putting both in order. This is what works for us:
- Ads for urgent searches while SEO gets going, only in your area and during your opening hours.
- The campaign's search terms report decides the first articles. The words that end in someone contacting you are the ones most worth ranking organically.
- When a page holds a top organic position, you lower the bid on that search and check for a few weeks that enquiries don't drop.
- You leave in Ads what SEO can't reach: the season, offers with a deadline and searches where the competition is too strong.
That way advertising stops being your only source of customers and starts covering the gaps, and every month you depend on it a little less.
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Your Google profile and AI answers
For a business with premises, part of SEO isn't on the website but on the map. When someone searches "near me", the first results are usually business profiles, and what counts there is the category, the photos, the reviews and keeping the information up to date. We explain it step by step in our guide to the Google Business Profile.
On top of that, more and more people ask an artificial intelligence directly. What ChatGPT or Gemini answer comes from what they've read about you on your website, your profile and elsewhere, not from what you spend on ads. Working on that is GEO, and it relies on the same content as SEO.
How to tell which one brings you customers
To decide with data rather than gut feeling, you need to measure where each enquiry comes from: calls, WhatsApp messages and forms, split by channel. In our team Izan, who looks after data, sets that up before any campaign goes live.
And there's one question that never fails: "how did you hear about us?". Note it down at every first contact for a couple of months and you'll get a fairly accurate picture of which channel brings you customers and which only brings you visits.
Five questions to decide between SEO and Google Ads
- Do you need customers this month or in a year's time? If it's this month, start with ads.
- How much does a new customer leave you? If the margin is small and the customer doesn't come back, advertising is hard to make profitable.
- Does your customer search in a hurry or compare calmly? Hurry is won with ads; calm, with content.
- Do you have a page to send the click to? Without one, any campaign loses money.
- Can you keep the work going for six months without seeing a return? If the answer is no, SEO on its own isn't for you right now.
SEO or Google Ads with a team from Girona
We're three partners working from the Palau Firal in Sant Antoni de Calonge, with businesses across the provinces of Girona and Barcelona. In the first conversation we look at what people search for in your line of work in your area, who's already advertising and what a customer leaves you, and we tell you where we would start. Jordi, who handles strategy and campaigns, prepares the plan.
If you'd like us to look at your case, message us on WhatsApp with your website and the area you work in. You can also see what's included in our SEO service or get in touch through the contact form.
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