Paid search does one thing SEO cannot: it puts you in front of people today. It also spends money whether or not the campaign is set up well, which is why most accounts that arrive for review are quietly funding clicks that were never going to convert.
What consultant-led PPC looks like
The same person plans the account, writes the ads and reviews the numbers, so nothing is lost between strategy and execution. That means a small number of tightly themed campaigns rather than a sprawl, search terms reviewed regularly with negatives added, and budget moved towards what actually produces enquiries.
- Account structure built around the services you want to sell, not around every keyword that could theoretically apply.
- Search term review as a routine, because broad matching will find you irrelevant traffic if nobody is watching.
- Ad copy that matches the search and the landing page, so the click has somewhere sensible to arrive.
- Landing pages assessed honestly. Often the cheapest improvement to a PPC account is not in the account at all.
- Conversion tracking set up properly, including calls and form submissions, so reporting is about enquiries rather than impressions.
Where PPC fits alongside SEO
They answer different questions. PPC tells you within weeks which services, wordings and offers people respond to; SEO turns that knowledge into visibility you do not rent. Running both, the paid data informs which pages are worth building and which terms are worth chasing, and the organic gains let you narrow paid spend to the searches where it earns its place. If you are weighing where to start, the audit is often the cheapest way to find out.
What it costs
Management is quoted per account, because the work depends on the size of the account, the number of services, and how much needs rebuilding before it can run properly. Your advertising budget is separate and paid directly to the platform, so you always know what is media spend and what is management. Nothing is quoted before I have seen the account or the site.
Tell me what you sell, where you sell it and what a good enquiry is worth, and I will say whether paid search is likely to pay for itself — including when the answer is that it is not. Start a conversation.
Paid search buys attention now; organic SEO services build the visibility you stop paying for. Most accounts I take on end up running both, with the paid data deciding which organic pages get built first.
Frequently asked questions
Enough that the data means something, and no more than the value of the enquiries it produces. The honest answer depends on what a customer is worth to you and how competitive your terms are, which is why budgets are agreed after looking at the account rather than before.
You pay the platform directly, so the media spend stays in your control and visible to you. Management is quoted separately, per account.
Often yes, because they do different jobs. Paid search produces data and enquiries quickly; SEO compounds. The paid data is genuinely useful for deciding which organic pages to build first.
That is the usual starting point. The first step is a review of structure, search terms, tracking and landing pages, which normally shows where the waste is before anything is rebuilt.
Yes. Where a landing page is the weak point I will say so and suggest what to change, whether that is work I do or work your own developer does.
