How customers find you
Four steps between a Google search and your phone ringing
Small business SEO is about making each of these steps work for you. Lose people at any one of them and the enquiry goes to someone else.
Searches
“dentist near me”, “plumber Reservoir”, “café Northcote open now”
Sees the map pack
Three businesses, star ratings, photos and opening hours
Checks your website
Services, prices, reviews and whether you look trustworthy
Calls or books
One tap to call, a form that works, directions that are right
Honest scope
What we do for small businesses, and what we deliberately skip
A small business budget should go on the work that brings customers. Here's where we put it, and where we don't.
What we focus on
- Set up and tidy your Google Business Profile
- One clear page for each service you want to be found for
- Fix the speed and mobile issues that lose people
- Get your business details consistent across directories
- A simple routine for collecting genuine reviews
- A monthly report about calls and enquiries, not jargon
What we won't sell you
- Buying hundreds of backlinks from sites nobody reads
- Chasing national keywords you can't realistically win
- Forty blog posts a month written for word count
- 12-month contracts that keep you paying regardless
- Reports full of “impressions” that never become customers
Your first months
A small business SEO roadmap
We start where results come soonest, measure what happens, and build from there.
Get found properly
- Audit of your site, profile and top three competitors
- Google Business Profile completed and categories fixed
- Contact details made consistent everywhere
- Call and form tracking set up so we can measure results
Show up for more searches
- Service pages written or rewritten for each key service
- Suburb pages only where you genuinely serve the area
- Speed and mobile fixes on your most visited pages
- Review requests built into how you finish a job
Grow what's working
- Double down on the pages and searches bringing enquiries
- Local links from suppliers, associations and community
- Helpful articles answering what customers actually ask
- Monthly check-in on leads, rankings and next priorities
By industry
What actually wins local searches in your industry
The basics are the same everywhere. What tips the balance differs a lot between a plumber and a physio.
Tradies
Map pack visibility and fast mobile pages win most jobs. People choose who they can call in the next minute.
Read more →Clinics and allied health
Trust signals matter: practitioner bios, reviews and clear booking. Google holds health content to a higher standard.
Read more →Cafés and restaurants
Accurate hours, menus, photos and recent reviews. Most decisions happen inside Google Maps.
Read more →Professional services
Specific service pages beat a single “what we do” page. Searchers look for the exact service, not the firm.
Read more →Retail and online stores
Category pages and product information that answer questions, plus local stock for walk-in customers.
Read more →Home services
Suburb coverage and before-and-after photos. Customers want proof you have worked near them.
Read more →Free checklist
Five things you can do yourself this week
No agency needed. These are the same first steps we take with every new client.
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile
Fill in every field, pick the most specific primary category, and add at least ten real photos of your work or premises.
Ask your last five happy customers for a review
Send them the direct review link. A short personal message gets far more responses than a generic email.
Check your site on your own phone
Can you find your phone number in two seconds? Does the contact form work? If not, that's costing you customers.
Make sure your details match everywhere
Business name, address and phone should be identical on your website, Google, Facebook and directories.
Write one page per service
If you offer five services, you need five pages. One page listing everything rarely ranks for any of them.
FAQ