The local SEO checklist for Australian businesses
Every step we work through for a new local client, in priority order. Most of it you can do yourself in a weekend, and the first two sections alone move the needle for most businesses.
This is the list we work through for every new local client, in order. Most Australian businesses can do the first two sections themselves in a weekend and see movement within a month. Nothing here requires an agency.
1. Google Business Profile
This is where the fastest wins live. If you do nothing else on this page, do this section.
Set-up and accuracy
- Claim and verify the profile — and check nobody else has an unverified duplicate
- Set the correct primary category. This single field moves rankings more than almost anything else you control
- Add every relevant secondary category, but don't pad it with loosely related ones
- Name, address and phone exactly as they appear on your website, character for character
- Set a local phone number rather than only a 1300 number where possible
- Service-area business? Hide the address and set realistic service suburbs
- Complete opening hours, including public holiday hours
Content on the profile
- Write the business description using the words customers actually search
- List every service individually, each with its own description
- Add products with prices where it makes sense
- Upload at least 20 real photos — team, premises, vehicles, completed work
- Add new photos monthly. Dormant profiles slide
- Post weekly — offers, jobs completed, updates. It takes five minutes
- Seed the Q&A section with the questions you get asked on the phone, and answer them
- Enable messaging only if you'll actually respond quickly
2. Reviews
Review count, recency and content are the strongest prominence signal a small business can influence.
Building a review engine
- Create your short Google review link and save it as a phone shortcut
- Ask every satisfied customer, at the moment the job finishes — not a week later
- Automate it: an SMS or email triggered on job completion or invoice payment
- Aim for steady flow. Five a month beats sixty in one week, which looks manufactured
- Respond to every review, positive and negative, within 48 hours
- Use natural service and location language in your responses
- Never buy reviews or offer incentives — it breaches Google's policies and the ACCC takes a dim view
3. Website foundations
On-page essentials
- Name, address and phone in the footer of every page, matching your profile exactly
- LocalBusiness schema markup on the homepage and contact page
- A dedicated contact page with an embedded map and clear directions
- Unique title tag and meta description on every page, each mentioning the location where natural
- One page per service, not a single page listing everything
- Location pages only where you have genuine local content to put on them
- Tap-to-call phone number in the header on mobile
- Loads in under 2.5 seconds on a phone — test it on PageSpeed Insights
- Passes Core Web Vitals in Search Console
- HTTPS everywhere, no mixed content warnings
4. Citations and directories
Australian directories worth the time
- Yellow Pages, True Local, Hotfrog, Localsearch, StartLocal, AussieWeb
- Apple Maps Connect and Bing Places — small volume, but free and quick
- Your industry association and any licensing body register
- Supplier and manufacturer “find an installer” pages — often the best links you'll get
- Local chamber of commerce and business network listings
- Identical NAP everywhere. Even “St” versus “Street” matters
- Find and fix or remove old listings with a previous address or number
5. Content that earns local rankings
What to publish
- Answer the questions you get asked before someone books — one page each
- Publish real project write-ups with the location, the problem and the solution
- Price guides. Nobody wants to write them; everybody searches for them
- Comparison pages between the options a customer is weighing up
- Genuinely local content — council requirements, local conditions, seasonal issues
- Keep the cadence steady. Two solid pages a month beats ten then nothing
6. Local links
Where local links actually come from
- Sponsor a junior sports club and ask for a link from the sponsor page
- Supplier installer or stockist directories
- Local news and community sites — comment on something you actually know about
- Business awards and industry associations
- Partner and referral businesses that complement yours
- Never buy links in bulk. It's the one shortcut that can genuinely hurt you
7. Measure it
The four things worth tracking
- Google Business Profile insights — calls, direction requests, website clicks
- Search Console — which queries you appear for and where
- Google Analytics 4 with form submissions and phone taps as conversions
- Map pack position for your top ten keywords, checked monthly from a consistent location
If you'd rather not do it yourself
Everything above is what our $1,200 a month foundation retainer covers, done consistently, with a monthly report on what changed. But it’s all genuinely doable yourself, and we’d rather you knew that. Request the free audit and we’ll tell you which parts of this list you’re already failing, whether or not you hire us.
More questions
How long does this take to work?
Google Business Profile changes can show effect within days to weeks. Citations take 4–8 weeks to be crawled and counted. Content and links take months. Work top to bottom — the list is in order of speed and impact deliberately.
What's the single highest-impact item?
Your primary category on Google Business Profile, followed by review velocity. We regularly find businesses ranking poorly purely because their category is wrong — a bathroom renovator listed as a 'general contractor', for instance.
Do I need location pages for every area I service?
No, and it will hurt you if they're thin duplicates. Build a location page only where you have real content: jobs done there, photos, local specifics. Eight genuine pages beat forty templated ones.
How often should I redo this checklist?
Full pass every six months. Google Business Profile posting and review requests should be weekly habits, not periodic projects.
Want to know why you’re not ranking?
Send us your website. We’ll come back within two business days with a plain-English audit: what’s holding you back, what your competitors are doing, and what we’d fix first. No charge, no obligation.