Let’s get straight to it. You’ve got a marketing budget. Maybe it’s not massive; maybe it is.
In any case, you’re likely grappling with the most frequently asked question among Perth businesses: how much of their advertising budget should they allocate to SEO and how much to PPC?
It’s not a simple answer. Anyone who says there’s a magic ratio for eating is trying to sell you something you don’t need.
The truth? How much you need to spend on digital marketing in Perth will depend on many factors related to your business, the industry, and what you’re trying to do. But that doesn’t mean we can’t segment the information for maximum comprehension.
Why This Decision Actually Matters
The problem is this. If you do this incorrectly, you are effectively burning money. It will give you a marketing machine that works around the clock if you do it right.
We have watched Perth businesses keep doing the same wrong things. They either throw everything into Google Ads because they need leads tomorrow, or they bet it all on SEO and hope for a miracle in a month. Both approaches? These approaches are almost always destined to yield disappointment.
The companies that win are those that know what each channel does and how they are supposed to work together.
Breaking Down SEO Costs (The Real Numbers)
Let’s talk about SEO vs Google Ads cost from the SEO side first.
People love to say SEO is “free”. That’s rubbish. Sure, you’re not paying per click, but you’re paying for expertise, time, and strategy. A proper SEO campaign with a Perth agency like SEO Perth Experts isn’t cheap because it shouldn’t be. You’re investing in something that compounds over time.
Here’s what you’re actually paying for:
- Thorough SEO audits that find what’s actually broken
- Technical fixes to stop bleeding traffic
- Strategic keyword research beyond guesswork
- Content that doesn’t read like a robot wrote it
- Safe link building that won’t get you penalised
- Ongoing optimisation and transparent reporting
Most Perth businesses invest $1,500 to $5,000+ per month on solid SEO work. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows small businesses typically allocate 40–60% of their marketing budgets to online visibility.
Here’s where it gets interesting. That investment keeps working. Rankings from month six still bring traffic in month twelve without extra ad spend. Your cost per acquisition drops over time. The traffic compounds.
SEO ROI vs PPC ROI: The Long Game
When it comes to SEO ROI vs PPC ROI, SEO is playing chess, and PPC is playing checkers. Different games require different strategies.
For regular SEO, it typically takes 3-6 months to see any meaningful movement. If you’re in a competitive space, the process often takes longer. That’s frustrating, sure. But once you’re ranking? That’s when the magic happens.
We see clients achieving a cost per lead of under $10 through SEO work after one year of solid effort.
If you’d like to go into real numbers and ROI data, take a look at our exhaustive guide on whether SEO is worth it in 2025. Good luck getting that with Google Ads in a competitive Perth marketplace. You can’t.
The other thing about the ROI for SEO that people don’t think about is that there’s a credibility factor. When it’s your business that people are seeing organically on page one, you’re more trusted than those ads at the top. They simply do. It’s a psychological issue. That’s the kind of thing you can’t easily measure, but it definitely affects your conversion rates downstream.
The PPC Reality Check
PPC (especially Google Ads) is an entirely different animal.
You’re buying visibility. Immediately. That’s the trade-off.
PPC Prices vary greatly for Perth companies. Some keywords are $2 per click. Others? Try $50+ for competitive industries, like legal or finance. And plumbing and the other trades are somewhere in between.
Say you’re a plumber in Perth who’s bidding on “emergency plumber Perth”. That click costs $15—$30. With a 10 per cent conversion rate (and this percentage is good), you require 10 clicks to get one customer. That’s $150-$300 for every customer you acquire, in ad spend alone.
Can it work? Absolutely. If that customer has a lifetime value of $2,000, you’re golden.
However, there won’t be any traffic once you stop advertising. It goes into further detail about the differences between Google Ads and SEO, which we compared honestly in our article.
This is why comparing SEO vs PPC spend on a 1:1 basis doesn’t work for most businesses in Perth. They perform different roles at different speeds.
Perth Market Specifics You Need to Know
Here’s what makes the Perth market a bit different.
We’re a big city geographically but relatively small population-wise compared to Sydney or Melbourne. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Perth’s population sits at around 2.1 million, which is significantly smaller than Sydney’s 5.3 million or Melbourne’s 5.0 million. This factor affects both SEO and PPC in ways most businesses don’t think about.
For SEO
Competition for many local terms is actually manageable. A successful local strategy that focuses on Google Business Profile optimisation and location-specific content can get you in front of Perth customers without competing nationally. That’s huge. SEO Perth Experts specialises in this exact approach because it works.
For PPC
You are reaching a smaller audience, so you must be more intelligent about targeting. Can’t afford to spend clicks on those who will never convert. The flip side? With less competition can come lower prices per click in eastern states markets.
Seasons also have an impact. Businesses in Perth that offer air conditioning, pool maintenance, or landscaping experience a significant spike in search volume, depending on the sector. When demand is high, PPC allows you to grow rapidly. All year long, SEO is effective.
So How Should You Actually Split Your Budget?
Right. Okay, here’s the part you’ve been waiting for. There is no perfect solution, but here’s a workable framework that will cover most Perth businesses:
If you’re brand new (less than 6 months old)
Consider allocating 30% of your budget to SEO and 70% to PPC. Why? You need customers now. Don’t have time to wait six months for SEO to work its magic. But you also want to begin establishing that SEO foundation so you’re not forever reliant on paid marketing.
Start with a comprehensive SEO audit to identify the low-hanging fruit. Get the technical SEO sorted. Begin to do keyword research and produce new content. In the meantime, run your targeted PPC very well to keep the lights on.
If you’re already established but haven’t done a lot of SEO
Flip it. Skew 60/40, or even 70/30 toward SEO. You likely have a brand that’s been out there for some time. And now is the time to make a significant investment in organic visibility that will be paying dividends for years. Leverage PPC tactically for high-intent keywords where ROI is self-evident.
If you’re well-ranked but want to scale
Hell, maybe you should do 50/50 or, in extreme cases, try 40/60 for PPC. You’ve done the SEO work. Rankings are solid. Leverage PPC to dominate additional keywords, test new markets, or achieve scale faster than SEO can on its own.
If you’re in a very seasonal business
Variable allocation. Other payments Load cash onto PPC in the selling season when customers are on the market and ready to buy. Double up on next year’s summit by investing more in SEO during the shoulder time frame to build up your authority.
What About Actual Dollar Figures?
Let’s put it in perspective with a few examples of Perth businesses.
Scene #1: Small business deal: $2,000/m total budget, $1,400 for SEO (content, link development and full on-page optimisation)
$600 PPC – (emergency/urgent keywords only) Trades businesses are among the industries that receive exceptionally high returns on investment from local SEO.
Top rankings for “plumber Perth” or “electrician Scarborough” can easily drive hundreds of leads every month. The tiny PPC budget goes to these urgent, high-intent searches, i.e., queries like where can I get help right now?
Scenario 2: Professional Services ($5,000/month total budget)
- $3,000 for SEO (authority-building content strategy).
- $2,000 to PPC (commercial intent keywords).
Professional services need credibility. Organic rankings provide that. But PPC is perfect for grabbing ready-to-buy prospects looking for generic service terms. The neutrality of the balance leaves you to compete on both fronts.
Case 3: Ecommerce ($8,000/mo overall advertising budget)
- Up to $5,000 can be paid out for PPC (remarketing, shopping ads, and DC/pantry product campaigns).
- $3,000 is allocated for SEO category optimisation, product content development, and technical fixes.
Ecommerce tends to verge more towards PPC since the conversion takes place in a digital realm and ROI can be easily measured. But SEO brings the long-term traffic that equates to a sustainable business. And category pages that do well can be huge traffic motors.
The Mistakes to Avoid
We’ve stayed long enough to see the patterns, you know. Here’s what the most expensive budgeting mistakes are for Perth businesses:
- Doubling down on PPC: You rent attention forever. Once you stop paying, traffic stops.
- Expecting immediate SEO results: It’s six months at least. Anyone promising faster is lying. We’ve written about real SEO timeframes with actual data right here.
- Stretching the budget: You’re not having enough significant effect on either channel.
- No tracking: You might as well be speculating and hoping if you can’t quantify ROI.
- Forgetting the customer’s process: PPC and SEO go hand in hand. Someone sees your ad, looks up your rankings, checks out your content, and then converts in.
Here’s the truth: Let one of these go wrong and you are throwing money away. The Perth businesses that do make digital marketing work are the ones who see these pitfalls early, decide on a proactive approach and resource both channels to have a chance of working. Half-measures get you nowhere.
Making It Work in Practice
Here’s how genuinely proper budget allocation works in the real world:
You begin with that SEO audit. SEO Perth Experts do this properly – a serious technical deep dive, content analysis, competitor research – the full suite. This tells you what the problems are and where the opportunities lie.
Then, you’re fixing technical problems, you’re creating content, and you’re also launching focused PPC campaigns. Your SEO data is based on PPC, which makes sense. You know what key terms convert well on PPC? Those become priorities for your content and optimisation strategies.
The better you rank organically, the less money you’ll need to spend on PPC for those terms, which gives me more room in your budget to either add new keywords or scale SEO even further. The mix evolves. It’s not static.
Your Google Business Profile optimisation is automatically updated as part of the ongoing local SEO efforts in Perth, which presents low-hanging fruit opportunities for nearly every business. That’s visibility; it isn’t pay-per-click.
The Real Question You Should Ask
Instead of “how much should I spend on SEO vs PPC?”, ask yourself this:
“What would happen to my business if I stopped paying for ads tomorrow?”
If the answer is, “it would collapse”, you’ve got a problem. You’re too dependent on rented traffic.
“What would happen to my business if I stopped doing SEO?”
If the answer is “nothing would change”, that’s also a problem. You’re leaving massive opportunity on the table.
The goal is to get to a place where both channels contribute, but neither one is make-or-break. That’s sustainability.
Getting Started Right
Budgeting is one of those things that’s easy to do wrong, and it can be expensive when you do.
SEO Perth Experts have been performing this work for more than 20 years in the Perth scene. They understand the local competitive landscape, including when consumers are most active and what strategies are truly effective. Their method involves deep audits, strategic keyword research, and transparent reporting that will keep you informed about what your money is being used for.
When sorting technical SEO, ranking content, or managing PPC campaigns that won’t waste your budget, having experienced people on your side truly makes all the difference.
It’s not the business in Perth that spends the most and wins. It’s one that discriminates most intelligently and that wholeheartedly assesses everything before switching on data rather than guessing.
Are you ready to find out how you should split your budget between SEO and PPC? Contact SEO Perth Experts now for a no-obligation discussion. They’ll evaluate your situation, dissect your competition, and create a plan that serves the goals you actually have as a business.
