One of our friend is pulling a lot of traffic from China through paid ads. We’ve been working on SEO for around 4 months now but still nowhere near their level. Should we also consider paid traffic to help rankings, or just stay focused on SEO?

Paid traffic can maybe bump DA, but that doesn’t really mean much. If you want better keyword rankings, focus on on page SEO and guest posts. Organic traffic from real searches is what actually matters.

No, it doesn’t help rankings unless you mean sponsored results

No, not directly. Google doesn’t boost rankings just because you run ads. It can only help indirectly if it brings engagement, shares, or backlinks. Otherwise, ads are just for getting traffic, not SEO gains

I think regional traffic makes a difference for what you tank. So if most of the traffic is coming from China, ranking in Chinese locations would improve. You want to focus on ranking in America IMO so if your paid traffic is not coming from the US, I don't see much of a point in paying for it.

Paid traffic won’t improve SEO rankings. It’s better to invest that budget into a solid content strategy to compete directly with your closest competitors.