SEO vs Google Ads: which should a London business fund first?

Short version: fund Google Ads first when you need enquiries this month and can afford to pay for each click at your margins. Fund SEO first when you can wait a few months, when your customers search with intent you can own (local, specific, repeated), or when the cost of clicks in your sector makes buying every lead hard to sustain. Most London businesses that can afford both should run both, in sequence rather than at once, and measure them in one place. Details and sources follow.

What each one actually is

Google Ads is an auction. You choose searches, write ads, set an average daily budget for each campaign, and pay when someone clicks. Google notes that spend on any single day can be up to twice the daily average, evening out across the month. Where your ad appears and what you pay depends on your bid and on Quality Score, which Google calculates from expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience, scored from 1 to 10 at keyword level. In plain terms: relevant ads pointing at useful pages cost less per click than lazy ones.

SEO is the work of earning a place in the unpaid results and in the local map results. There is no auction. Google states that there is "no way to request or pay for a better local ranking", and its guidance on hiring an SEO says that no one can guarantee a number one ranking. What you pay for is the work: technical fixes, pages, content, your Business Profile, links earned, and the people doing it, whether that is you, a freelancer or an agency.

The two share one thing: the page the searcher lands on. A landing page that converts well helps both, and a bad one wastes both.

Side by side

Cost over time: the shape of the two curves

The economics are different in shape, not just size. Google Ads costs the same per lead in month twelve as in month one, give or take optimisation: every lead is bought. SEO costs the most per lead in the first months, when the work is being done and little has moved, and the least later, when pages built in month three are still producing enquiries in month eighteen. Which curve suits you depends on whether you can carry the early months.

For the SEO side, published agency prices give you the range. The SEO Works publishes a market range of £750 to £9,000 a month and sells four tiers from £1,500 (its own published pages, profile checked 9 Oct 2026). Breakline’s three plans are £599, £999 and £1,499 (its own published pages, profile checked 9 Oct 2026). ClickSlice states that its services start from £2,500 a month (its own published pages, profile checked 9 Oct 2026). Our own retainers are indicative until confirmed and are set out, with what each includes, on the pricing page; the cost guide has the full market picture.

For the Google Ads side we have deliberately not put a London cost-per-click figure in this guide. The honest number varies by sector, by hour of the day and by borough, and any single figure would mislead more than it informs. Your own Google Ads account shows the ranges for your exact searches before you spend anything. Add a management fee if an agency runs it, and remember that the fee usually does not fall when the media budget does.

Where Google Ads wins

• You need enquiries this month. A new clinic in Canary Wharf with rent to pay cannot wait six months for organic results. Ads fill the gap while SEO is built.
• Demand is urgent and high-margin. An emergency locksmith or a boiler engineer in Westminster sells to people who need help in the next hour and will click the first result they trust. Paying for that click is rational.
• You are testing. Ads tell you within weeks which searches, messages and pages convert. That knowledge then tells you which pages to build for SEO, so the test is not wasted.
• The organic results are not winnable yet. For some central London head terms the first page is held by national brands and marketplaces. Ads put you on the page while you build toward the terms you can own.
• Time-limited offers. A January membership drive for a gym in Wimbledon or a seasonal menu in Soho has a window too short for SEO.

Where SEO wins

• Local, repeated demand. Searches like "dentist near me", "accountant Islington" or "Thai restaurant Clapham" are made every day, for years. Earning a place in the map results and the organic results for them produces enquiries you do not pay for individually. Our local SEO work for Leam Taxis in Leamington Spa (not a London client) is the shape of it: first place for airport-transfer searches, with impressions up 60 to 300 percent, website clicks up 50 to 200 percent and calls up 30 to 150 percent across tracked terms, measured in Google Business Profile, Search Console and GA4. See the case study for the figures and sources.
• The local map results. There is no paid route into the organic local pack. A complete, active Business Profile with genuine reviews is the only way in, and it is the first thing a local customer sees.
• Questions before purchase. People researching "how much does a loft conversion cost in London" or "do I need planning permission for a basement" are not ready to click an ad, but they are choosing who to trust. Guides that answer them are SEO work and they compound.
• Margins that cannot carry click costs. Where the value of a sale is modest and competition for clicks is intense, buying every lead can consume the margin. Earning them is slower but sustainable.
• Longevity. Pages and authority built this year still work next year. Nothing bought this month does.

Which to fund first: a decision table

Running both without paying twice

The two channels share searches, pages and customers, so run carelessly they overlap and you pay for visits you would have had anyway. Run well, each makes the other cheaper.

1. Use the search terms report to decide what to build. Google Ads shows you the exact searches that led to clicks and conversions. The ones that convert are the ones worth an organic page.
2. Share landing pages, and improve them for both. Landing page experience is a component of Quality Score, and a page that converts organic visitors converts paid ones too. One page, improved once, pays twice.
3. Measure in one place. One Google Analytics 4 property with the same key events for both channels, so you can compare cost per enquiry honestly rather than from two agencies’ reports.
4. Test before you assume. If you rank first organically for a search, try pausing the ad for it for a fortnight and watch total enquiries, not just paid ones. Sometimes the ad is still worth it; sometimes it is buying clicks you already had. The data decides.
5. Move budget as organic grows. As pages start producing enquiries, shift paid spend to the searches organic has not reached. The plan should be written down at the start so nobody is surprised when the Ads budget shrinks.
6. One report, two columns. If the same team or two teams who talk to each other run both, the monthly report should show enquiries by channel side by side.

London specifics

London is denser than anywhere else in the UK, in people and in competitors. That cuts both ways. For Ads it means more advertisers bidding on the same central searches, so relevance and landing pages matter more than budget. For SEO it means that borough and neighbourhood searches ("physio Richmond", "wedding photographer Hackney") are large enough to be worth owning on their own, and that a business in one part of London is rarely competing with a business in another for local results, because distance shapes what each searcher sees. Our guide to local SEO for London businesses covers that in detail.

What we would tell you

We sell both. Our managed SEO and Google Ads management are run by people who talk to each other, and we would rather tell you to start with one than sell you both on day one. The free SEO audit looks at your site, your Business Profile and the searches that matter to you, and says which channel to fund first and why. If the answer is "neither yet, fix the website", it says that too.

Get your free SEO auditA person reviews your site within two working days and tells you which channel to fund first.