Usually both, with different jobs. Ads and Local Services Ads catch homeowners who need an inspection now, while SEO and AI search visibility build cheaper, steadier calls over time. Many companies lean on ads early and shift budget as organic calls grow.
Foundation repair clicks are expensive because the jobs are large and national brands bid aggressively. Ads still have a place. They put you in front of homeowners with urgent needs, like a seller whose buyer just got an inspection report. Google Local Services Ads, with the Google Guaranteed badge, are worth testing because you pay per lead rather than per click and they appear at the very top. Search ads also give you quick data on which terms and areas produce real inspections, which helps you decide where to focus your longer term content.
The weakness of ads is that they stop the moment you stop paying. SEO is the opposite. Symptom pages, method pages and city pages take months to build momentum, but once they rank they bring in calls without a per click cost. They also feed AI answers, which increasingly sit above both ads and organic results for question style searches. Over time, a strong organic presence can lower how much you need to spend on ads, because you already own a share of the clicks for free.
A practical plan is to run tight ad campaigns on high intent terms like 'foundation repair near me' and 'foundation inspection', exclude areas you do not serve, and send clicks to a focused landing page. At the same time, invest in content and your Google Business Profile. Review the numbers monthly and move budget toward whatever books jobs at the lowest cost. Add negative keywords for do it yourself searches and job seekers, and watch the search terms report every week. Small fixes there save a surprising amount of wasted spend.
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