SEO or Google Ads for a small business?
Ads if you need work this month. SEO if you can wait six. Most businesses that can afford it should start ads to learn what converts, then use what they learn to decide what to write.
What ads are good at
Ads produce traffic immediately and stop the moment you stop paying. That makes them right for urgency, for testing, and for seasonal pushes.
The underrated benefit is learning. A month of ads tells you which search terms actually produce enquiries, which is exactly what you need before deciding what to write pages about.
What SEO is good at
SEO compounds. A page that ranks keeps working with no further spend, and the cost per enquiry falls over time rather than rising.
It is slow, it is not guaranteed, and the work happens months before the return. That combination is why it gets abandoned.
The order that usually works
Run ads on a small budget for a month or two, and note which terms produce actual enquiries rather than clicks. Then write pages for those terms, because you now know they convert instead of guessing.
That sequence costs more up front and wastes far less. The common failure is writing twenty pages first and discovering none of them attract buyers.
Find what is costing you search clicks, then watch the fix work.
VisitorPing reads your own Search Console data for the pages losing clicks, then rings your phone the moment someone lands on your website.