What is SEO?

What is SEO? SEO, short for search engine optimisation, is work that helps a business show up in Google's free results for the searches its customers make. For a local business or tradie, that means showing up when people nearby search for what you do, in the normal results, in Google Maps and now in AI answers.

How does Google decide what to show?

When someone searches, Google tries to show the most useful, trustworthy answer. For a business, that comes down to three things:

1. Your website: does a page clearly answer the search, load fast and work on a phone? This is on-page SEO. See what is on-page SEO.
2. Your reputation online: do other sites link to you, mention you and list your details correctly? This is off-page SEO. Backlinks are links from other websites to yours, which Google treats as votes of trust. See what is off-page SEO.
3. For local searches, your Google Business Profile: a business's free listing on Google Search and Google Maps, with hours, reviews and photos.

Google's own SEO Starter Guide explains the basics in more detail.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is helping a business show up when people nearby search for its service. For a plumber, electrician or landscaper, most searches are local: "plumber near me", "electrician Southport". For these, Google shows the local pack, the map and three businesses Google shows above the normal results for local searches, and the normal results below. Local SEO works on both. More: local SEO and SEO for tradies.

What does SEO work actually involve?

Each month, SEO for a small business usually means:

1. Finding the searches that bring customers, and who shows up for them now.
2. Improving the website: a page for each service and area, clear titles and headings, speed and schema.
3. Keeping the Google Business Profile complete and accurate.
4. Reviews: customer reviews on Google and other sites, which help both rankings and trust.
5. Citations: listings of a business's name, address and phone on other websites, which must match everywhere.
6. Genuine links from local and industry sites.
7. Tracking real calls and enquiries, and reporting on them.

What SEO problems look like in real life

From a plumbing website we took over (the business isn't named): location pages copied from one template with the wrong suburb and even the wrong business name in the titles, a whole group of pages set to "noindex" so Google was told not to show them, a second home page still published, and blog posts outranking the pages built to get the call. None of this was visible to the owner. That's what SEO fixes first.

SEO, Google Ads and AI search: what's the difference?

• SEO: the free results. Takes months to build, then keeps working without paying per click.
• Google Ads: paid ads at the top. Calls from the day they go live, paid per click. See Google Ads management.
• AI search: Google's AI Overviews, the AI-written answers Google now shows above, or instead of, the normal results, and tools like ChatGPT. They draw on the same facts SEO builds. Google and AI tools trust a business more when its name, address and details match everywhere. See AI search visibility.

How long does SEO take, and what does it cost?

Fixes to your Google profile and website can help within weeks; competitive searches usually take several months. For a small local business, ongoing SEO with us is usually around $1,500 to $2,000 + GST a month. The full picture: how much does SEO cost?