SEO that makes the phone ring, not the report bin

There's no honest single number, because SEO is priced on scope and competition, not a shelf price. As a general guide, most Australian SEO agencies charge somewhere between a few hundred dollars a month for a small local campaign and several thousand a month for a competitive metro or multi-location business — and you should be wary of anyone at the very bottom of that range, because real SEO takes real hours and the cheapest quotes usually mean outsourced, templated work. We don't publish a fixed price because what your business actually needs depends on the state of your site, your market, and your goals. We quote after a discovery call so the number matches the work — and there's no "starter package" that turns into a $3,000 upsell three months in. We break down what actually drives the price in our guide to how much SEO costs in Australia.

Months, not weeks. Things usually start to move in 60–90 days — new keywords ranking, more impressions, more clicks. Visible lead-flow changes typically take three to six months for an established site, and six to nine for a newer one. Local-pack rankings (the map results) often move faster because most competitors haven't optimised their Google Business Profile properly. Anyone promising you page one in two weeks is either talking about ads or not telling the truth. We tell you which category your business is in on the discovery call.

Look for four things. First, do they tie their work to leads and bookings, or just to rankings and traffic? Vanity metrics don't pay the bills. Second, will they show you exactly what they did each month in plain English, or do they hide behind jargon and 50-page PDFs? Third, do they lock you into a 12-month contract — usually a sign they expect you'd leave sooner if you could? Fourth, do they actually understand your market and, if you're in healthcare, the AHPRA rules? A good SEO agency will be honest on the first call about what's realistic, and will happily tell you if SEO isn't the right spend for you yet.

For most local service businesses, yes — because the people searching "electrician near me" or "physio Toowong" are ready to book, and SEO puts you in front of them without paying for every click the way you do with ads. The leads compound: once you're ranking, the enquiries keep coming without the per-click cost. Where it's not worth it is if your customers don't search for what you do, or if your website is so broken that ranking it would just send people to a page that doesn't convert — in which case we'll tell you to fix that first. We're honest about it on the discovery call: if SEO won't pay for itself in your situation, we'll say so.

Both put you on Google, but you pay for them differently and they work on different timelines. Google Ads buys your way to the top of the results instantly — you pay for every click, and the moment you stop paying, you disappear. SEO earns your spot in the organic (unpaid) results over time — it's slower to build, but you don't pay per click, and the rankings keep working after the spend. Most service businesses run both: ads to get enquiries flowing today while SEO and your Google Business Profile build underneath, then lean more on organic as it kicks in. We'll tell you the right mix for your situation rather than selling you both by default.

No. Month-to-month, cancel any month with 30 days' notice. Long lock-ins are usually a sign the agency knows you'd leave sooner if you could. We'd rather earn the next month than trap you in the last eleven.

Bring them on the discovery call if you want. We'll be honest about whether you should switch, top them up, or stay where you are. We've told two clients this year to stay with their current agency. Awkward for the conversation. Right for them.

Most Australian service businesses. Trades, clinics, allied health, salons, gyms, accountants, lawyers, real estate. We've got clients in both healthcare and non-healthcare — happy to point you at work in your space on the call. The list of things we won't touch: gambling, payday loans, anything that needs us to lie to Google. If you're in regulated healthcare we'll walk you through AHPRA-safe content rules upfront.

Yes. The discovery call ends with a written summary — what we noticed, what we'd prioritise, what's worth waiting on. You keep it whether you hire us or not.

Either works. Most clients have us write it: AI does the research and draft, our writers polish and check it, you approve before it goes live. Some clients have a marketing person in-house. In that case, we hand them the briefs and they write it.

We tell you. Directly. We've ended retainers ourselves when we couldn't move the numbers for a specific business or category. You won't have to fire us first. We'll bring it up before you do.