It might not be the answer you were hoping for (we’re nothing if not honest), but the truth is that they are both important and effective. For real growth and results, you really do need the duo together.

The good news is that Sydney SEO services are more cost-effective. Instead of paying for clicks like you do with Google AdWords, your investment will go into researching keywords, creating content, and optimising the technical aspects of your website. All of these measures are in order to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). It takes time, and there are more than 200 factors to Google’s algorithm, so it’s not an exact science and there’s no real way of knowing what your ranking will be.

Meanwhile, PPC is quick to set up. But as you pay every time someone clicks on your ad, it can be more expensive.

Overall, combining SEO and PPC is the ideal strategy. If you fail to rank well organically, you’ll still pop up in the paid results, and if your PPC campaign is letting you down, you may appear at the top organically. As a bonus, we’ve seen that brands that invest in both routes tend to experience better clickthrough rates and larger market shares.

When people search for products and services online, SEO helps to get your business appearing at the top of those valuable search results.

Every Google search generates millions of results, but there’s only really one place that matters – the first page of search results. As much as 75% of all clicks on Google are on first-page results, making it an extremely lucrative position for those that reside there.

Great SEO ultimately helps you get seen, which can lead to traffic, which can ultimately lead to sales.

The best SEO consultants in Sydney know that it takes great keyword research, content development, quality link building, and technical optimisation to generate real results. The keyword research helps you find the terms that your target audience is searching for, while the content development helps to build out your existing and new content in a way that will improve your search results. The technical side of things gives Google a helping hand in crawling and indexing your page, and shows the algorithm that your site is worth ranking well. Meanwhile, backlinks from high domain authority websites establish your website as a trustworthy and reputable source — again pushing you up in the rankings.

Keep in mind, keywords aren’t always short strings of two or three words – they can be whole sentences. This might be “what’s the best cocktail bar in Darling Harbour?”, or “where can I buy house paint in Alexandria?”. These are called long-tail keywords, and they aren’t searched for as often as short-tail keywords, but they do tend to generate better conversions as they have a higher search intent. Good keyword research and content development will use both short- and long-tail keywords for the best results.

Google’s algorithm, which is responsible for creating search rankings, is an immensely complex system, and there’s an entire industry that exists to deal with its many challenges. Google regularly updates the algorithm, meaning SEO experts in Sydney and around the world must stay on the ball to keep up. The technical elements are diverse, meaning that if you don’t optimise for areas such as metadata, page speed, and schema mark-ups, your rankings might be negatively impacted as a result.

Simply conducting keyword research and developing content takes a huge amount of time and skill. There’s a lot of manpower involved, especially if you’re covering these areas well. Many businesses, especially SMBs, often find they don’t have the resources to create authoritative content in a way that appeals to Google’s algorithms.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. A great SEO company in Sydney (that’d be us!), can research keywords, create content, and simplify the entire process so you can improve your rankings and reap the rewards. Get in touch with us at AdVisible to find out more.

Seeing results can be influenced by a number of factors, so it’s impossible to give a definitive answer here (anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to hard-sell you something). The competitiveness of your industry, the keywords you’re after, the age and authority of your domain, and whether Google has penalised your site in the past all play a role in how effective your SEO will be. Any previous SEO work you have completed will also factor in.

That said, the usual time frame for seeing real results is anywhere from two to six months. It depends a lot on your current rankings, how much needs to be updated or changed, and how much content you need.

Complicating things further is the fact that Google will show you different results to what it shows someone else, as it takes into account your past searches, location, demographic, interest, and other personal data such as behaviours when it creates a results page for you. It’s best to use a dedicated SEO tool to view an unbiased view of your rankings.

Technically speaking, you don’t pay a cent for the traffic generated from SEO – to Google, at least. It’s everything else that costs. You’ll need to invest in the skills and experience of experts to create quality content, build high-quality backlinks from high domain authority sites and optimise your website in order to make the most of those ‘free’ results page rankings.

SEO is surprisingly vast in scope, so costing a campaign can vary greatly depending on your provider, the current state of your website, and whether you complete it all in-house, with an agency, or through a combination of the two. If you were to do the whole shebang in-house, you’d need (at minimum) an SEO technician, a developer, a technologist, and a coordinator, all of which could add up to $250,000+. And that’s not including a content marketing strategist or SEO content writer, which are just as vital for success.

On the other hand, an SEO professional at an agency can cost anywhere between $75 to $250 per hour, while a monthly retainer with an agency averages around $1,500 – $3,000 — a far more cost-effective choice. On top of being the more cost-effective option, working with an SEO agency in Sydney also ensures you’re getting access to experienced experts who know all the tricks involved with those all-important results page rankings.

One last word of advice: steer clear of any agency charging under $1,000 per month, and try to avoid going with the cheapest option out there. Any provider who is undercharging compared to the industry average is likely using black-hat methods. While this might be appealing in the short-term, the cost of undoing these penalties in the future will cost you far more than what you save.

The right SEO agency can make all the difference to your website’s success. No pressure. You’ll need to find a company that runs the gamut of SEO skills from content development to technical updates, and they absolutely must be up to date with Google’s algorithm updates.

Not sure how to check all of that? Take a look at their past experience. Find out how their past clients are ranking, which keywords they are ranking for, and what their website traffic looks like in terms of whether it comes from paid or organic search.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions. There are a LOT of them when it comes to the complicated world of SEO, and the right agency will give you clear answers and take the time to explain how they can improve your rankings. If you’re unsure about anything, just ask – this is a great way to evaluate how knowledgeable a provider is, and how committed they are to working with you.

A word to the wise: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There are SEO vendors out there who take shortcuts to manipulate Google’s algorithm, but it’s been a long time since anyone has been able to outsmart that algorithm, and the ‘black hat’ (AKA unethical) strategies these companies use never work for long. Even worse, you risk being penalised in Google (translation: sent to the Mariana Trench of Google results on page 300), which is extremely difficult to recover from.

AdVisible offers teams of SEO experts in Sydney that are always up to date with Google’s ever-changing algorithm. We only use best practices, and we’re ready to adapt as required to get results for your businesses and help you maintain those wins.

Our process is tried and trusted, and our methods have helped thousands of businesses improve their search engine rankings to drive more and more traffic to their sites. Request a free digital marketing audit to get started, and check out our many telling case studies here.