# Nathan Schram Digital
> Melbourne-based digital consultancy operated by Nathan Schram, specialising in web design, SEO, AI search optimisation, and paid advertising for small and medium businesses.
Nathan Schram Digital is an independent digital consultancy based in Melbourne, Australia, operated by Nathan Schram as a sole trader. Nathan has 14 years of experience across marketing, sales, and business development in the tech industry, and works directly with small and medium businesses — no outsourcing, no juniors.
# About Nathan Schram
Source: https://nathanschram.com/about/
Digital consultant based in Melbourne. Modern websites, SEO, and Google Ads — built for results, not reports.
I've spent 14 years working across tech companies — from early-stage startups to ASX-listed organisations — in marketing, sales, and business development. I've seen what works, what gets ignored, and what actually moves the needle for a business online.
Now I work directly with small and medium businesses as a digital consultant. I build websites, improve search visibility, run paid advertising across Google and social, and help people figure out where to focus their time and budget. I do the work myself — no outsourcing, no juniors, no 40-page PDFs when a straight conversation would do.
## How I work
I use modern tools and AI to work faster and deliver more than you'd expect from a solo consultant. That means you get focused, high-quality work without the agency overhead, the six-week timelines, or the account manager who doesn't actually know your business.
I'm upfront about what's worth doing and what isn't. If something's not going to work for your situation, I'll tell you — even if it means less work for me.
## Background
A few highlights from the past 14 years:
- **Marketing & growth** — Led digital marketing, content strategy, and campaign execution across B2B and B2C tech companies
- **Sales & partnerships** — Business development and sales roles spanning SaaS, adtech, and martech
- **Product & strategy** — Product marketing, go-to-market planning, and competitive analysis for startups and scale-ups
- **Builder** — Designed and built multiple products and websites from scratch, including Little Bear Apps, Viewpo, and WP Navigator
Based in Melbourne and available for local and remote work across Australia.
# Media & interviews
Source: https://nathanschram.com/media/
Media page for journalists, editors, producers and podcast hosts. Includes a 50-word and a 150-word bio (free to lift verbatim) and contact details (hello@nathanschram.com — usually replies within a few hours on business days, AEST; written comment, phone, video and podcast formats).
Commentary areas: practical digital marketing for Australian small businesses and where money gets wasted; AI search and how ChatGPT, Google's AI results and other answer engines describe businesses; and digital marketing for charities, community sports clubs and volunteer-run organisations on tight budgets. Nathan will say when something in his own industry is overhyped, and won't comment on individual clients or stretch past what he actually knows.
# Digital Health Check (Stage 01)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/digital-health-check/
See where you stand. The starting point of the journey. It comes in two versions.
The free Basic Digital Health Check is delivered live on the 45-minute intro call from publicly available data — surfacing what's working, what's wasting, and what's missing across your current digital presence. Yours to keep, whether you work with me afterwards or not.
The In-Depth Digital Health Check goes deeper using login data, priced through a live configurator:
- $300 SEO & Analytics base pack (mandatory precondition for any paid deep-dive)
- Optional deep-dives across the four channel services: AI Search & GEO, Web Design, Paid Search, Paid Social
- 10% bundle discount when all four deep-dives are ticked
- ACNC-registered charities get 25% off
- Pricing range: $300 floor → $1,065 ceiling fully loaded
The Strategic Digital Roadmap is a separate stage (below), sold conversationally on a call — not an upgrade inside this configurator.
# Client Exploration (Stage 02)
Where do you want to go? A conversation about your goals and direction — so the plan that follows answers what you actually want, not a generic template. It sits between the Health Check (what's true now) and the Strategic Digital Roadmap (what to do next). Working stage name; no separate page yet.
# Strategic Digital Roadmap (Stage 03)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/digital-roadmap/
Know what to do next. The plan that follows a Digital Health Check — what to do, in what order, and why. A multi-call strategic process that turns the diagnosis (and what we work out about your goals) into a sequence, with rough budget guidance per phase and a sense of how you'll know the work is helping.
Sold conversationally on a call when it's the right next step — there's no buy-now button and no configurator tickbox. Priced by the scope you settle on together; no public number.
# Build & Launch (Stage 04)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/build-and-launch/
The execution phase. The plan from your Roadmap becomes a working website, a clean Google Ads account, an actually-tracked conversion path, an SEO foundation that Google can crawl. I do the work; you stay involved at the decision points that matter.
Project-based, quoted up-front after a discovery conversation. Combines one or more of the five service lines as needed: SEO & Analytics base pack (mandatory), AI Search & GEO, Web Design, Paid Search, Paid Social.
# Looked After (Stage 05)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/looked-after/
Ongoing monthly support across one or more channels. Reporting, optimisation, monthly catch-up calls, proactive recommendations across SEO, paid ads, analytics, and your website. Month-to-month default. Flexible monthly fees from ~$1,000/mo, scaling with scope.
# SEO & Analytics ★ (the base pack)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/services/seo-and-analytics/
Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, plus the technical and on-page SEO work that helps Google find you. The mandatory base pack underneath every other paid deep-dive at Nathan Schram Digital — every channel service requires this layer first because they all need clean tracking and indexation to work properly.
## Who this is for
- Businesses underperforming in Google search despite having a functional website.
- Companies with no analytics installed, or analytics nobody trusts the numbers from.
- Founders setting up a new site who want SEO and analytics foundations baked in from day one.
- Local Melbourne or Australia-wide businesses with weak Google Business Profiles.
- Anyone told they "need SEO" by an agency without anyone explaining what that actually means.
## What's included
- Google Analytics 4 — full setup, custom event configuration, conversion goal mapping, audience definitions, cross-domain tracking when needed.
- Google Tag Manager — installation, container architecture, tag/trigger/variable setup, debug-mode QA, server-side GTM where attribution warrants the upgrade.
- Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools + IndexNow — verification, sitemap submission, query/page monitoring, indexation health. Bing indexation is a precondition for AI search visibility on ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot (87% of SearchGPT citations match Bing's top results, per Seer Interactive's 2025 study).
- Plausible Analytics — privacy-first alternative for clients who don't want Google's stack.
- Conversion tracking integration — wiring all platforms together so a single event fires through GA4, Google Ads, Meta Pixel, and LinkedIn Insight Tag without double-counting and without missed firings.
- Technical SEO — site speed, crawlability, indexation, mobile performance, Core Web Vitals (LCP / INP / CLS), structured data, robots.txt, sitemap, canonical URL hygiene.
- On-page SEO — content structure, headings, meta titles + descriptions, internal linking, schema.org markup, image alt + filenames, page-level intent clarity.
- Local SEO — Google Business Profile setup + optimisation, NAP citation consistency, local schema, area-based search visibility, review-acquisition guidance.
- Content strategy + briefs — recommendations on what to write, how to structure it, and which existing pages to update.
- Measurement — Search Console, GA4, Lighthouse, and Core Web Vitals trend reporting in plain language. Auditor Toolkit (NSD's internal analytics platform) wraps DataForSEO + Lighthouse + GBP + Search Console + Ads APIs into a single per-client view.
## Engagement shapes
1. One-off audit — configure your In-Depth Health Check with the SEO & Analytics base pack ticked. Pricing scales from $300 (base pack only) up to $1,065 with every channel deep-dive (10% bundle discount applied).
2. Audit + 90-day implementation sprint — roughly 2 weeks audit + 6–10 weeks implementation. Analytics setup ships first (faster impact + makes everything else measurable), tech-SEO fixes in parallel, content strategy + Google Business Profile work across the same window, then a 30-day measurement window before the next decision.
3. Ongoing optimisation under Looked After — monthly cadence: review Search Console + GA4 + Core Web Vitals + Bing Webmaster Tools; prioritise next tickets; ship them; report.
# AI Search & GEO
Source: https://nathanschram.com/services/ai-search-and-geo/
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Claude. Help Australian businesses get cited when prospects ask AI tools "who's the best [X] in [city]". Builds on the SEO & Analytics base pack — that layer is a precondition.
## Who this is for
- Businesses whose competitors keep showing up in AI Overviews, Perplexity, or ChatGPT answers — and they don't.
- Professional services firms (legal, accounting, consulting, migration agents) where prospects increasingly ask AI assistants "who's the best [X] in [city]?" before contacting anyone.
- Technical and software businesses where buyers do vendor research via Perplexity or Claude before reaching out for a demo.
- Brands in sectors where AI citation activity is already noticeable (legal services, healthcare, finance, technical software, B2B SaaS).
- Founders who already invested in solid traditional SEO + analytics and want the next layer of visibility before competitors get there.
## What's included
- AI search visibility audit — manual prompt testing across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Claude on 10–20 high-intent queries. Baselines current citation rate; identifies competitor citations; surfaces the gap.
- Entity clarity remediation — Person, Organisation, and LocalBusiness schema with sameAs links to authoritative sources (LinkedIn, professional registries, government databases, Wikipedia where applicable).
- GEO-specific schema markup — beyond the basic schema in the base pack: FAQPage with citation-friendly answer formatting, HowTo schema for procedural content, structured author bylines with credentials, dated facts with named sources.
- Citable structured-content packaging — restructuring existing on-site content so AI engines can extract clear, citable answers. Explicit Q&A blocks, named-source citations, dated facts, author attribution.
- Third-party citation footprint — manual list of the 10–30 directories, registries, and forums that genuinely feed AI engine recommendation patterns per sector.
- Quarterly AI search visibility re-audit — re-running the baselined queries each quarter; tracking citation rate trend; iterating tactics.
- Bing Webmaster Tools + IndexNow — Bing is a primary citation backbone for ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, so being indexed by Bing is a precondition. Set up via the SEO & Analytics base pack.
## Engagement shapes
1. Audit-only deep-dive — tick AI Search & GEO inside your In-Depth Health Check configurator (alongside the SEO & Analytics base pack — the precondition). Pricing scales with which channels you tick; full-stack range $300 floor → $1,065 ceiling.
2. Setup project + quarterly re-audit on Looked After — setup phase: 2–3 weeks (audit + entity-clarity schema implementation + structured-content packaging on the 5–15 highest-priority pages + initial third-party citation push). Then quarterly re-audit cadence on Looked After.
# Paid Search Ads
Source: https://nathanschram.com/services/paid-search/
Google Ads (primary) and Microsoft Ads for businesses that want measurable lead flow from intent-driven search traffic without burning budget on trial and error.
## Who this is for
Businesses with offers or services that customers actively search for — local services, B2B, ecommerce, and anyone whose buyers Google a problem before choosing a provider. Especially those who've tried Google Ads before and didn't get the conversion numbers they expected.
## What's included
- Account audit and setup — keyword research, ad-group structure, negative keywords, geo targeting, ad scheduling, and conversion tracking via GA4 + Google Ads conversion actions.
- Google Ads campaigns — Search and Performance Max where appropriate. Ad copywriting, ad-extensions, landing-page alignment, and Quality Score optimisation.
- Microsoft Ads — for B2B and older audiences where Bing share is meaningful. Imported and tuned where it shifts cost-per-lead.
- Reporting — plain-language monthly reports tying spend to outcomes, with explicit recommendations for the next month.
## How it works
1. We start with your goals — leads, calls, bookings, ecommerce purchases — and define what a successful conversion looks like.
2. I build the campaigns, write the ads, set up conversion tracking, and align your landing pages.
3. Campaigns go live and I monitor performance daily for the first two weeks, then weekly thereafter.
4. Monthly optimisation and reporting from there — refining keywords, ad copy, bids, and audiences based on conversion data.
# Paid Social Ads
Source: https://nathanschram.com/services/paid-social/
Meta (Facebook + Instagram) and LinkedIn campaigns for businesses that need to reach new audiences who aren't actively searching yet — brand-building, retargeting, lead generation, and remarketing.
## Who this is for
Businesses with a strong visual story (Meta) or a clear B2B audience defined by job title, company, or industry (LinkedIn). Especially those who've tried boosting posts and want a properly structured campaign instead.
## What's included
- Meta Ads — Facebook and Instagram campaigns covering awareness, lead-gen, and retargeting. Audience targeting (custom + lookalike), creative strategy across feed, stories, and reels.
- LinkedIn Ads — Sponsored Content, Message Ads, and Lead Gen Forms targeting by job title, company size, industry, and seniority.
- Pixel + CAPI for Meta, Insight Tag for LinkedIn — server-side conversion tracking so attribution holds up in iOS 14.5+ and post-cookie environments.
- Creative direction — guidance on what to film, design, or write for the platform. Hand-off to designers/videographers if you have them, or recommendations if you don't.
- Reporting — plain-language monthly reports separating reach, engagement, and conversion metrics so you can see where each dollar is going.
## How it works
1. We start with the audience — who, where, and what they care about — and pick the platform that gets you in front of them efficiently.
2. I build the campaigns, brief the creative (or work with what you have), and set up Pixel/CAPI/Insight Tag tracking end-to-end.
3. Campaigns launch and I monitor for two weeks: testing audiences, creatives, and bid strategy combinations.
4. Monthly optimisation and reporting from there — killing what's not working, doubling down on what is.
# Web Design & Hosting
Source: https://nathanschram.com/services/web-design/
Custom websites built with modern tools — fast, clean, and structured for search from day one. No page builders, no bloated themes.
## Who this is for
Small and medium businesses that want a website built properly — whether it's a new build, a rebuild, or a redesign of something that's not working. Especially businesses that care about speed, search visibility, and not being locked into a page builder they can't maintain.
## What's included
- Custom design — no templates, no themes. A site designed around your business, your content, and your goals.
- Built with Astro and Tailwind CSS — modern tools that produce fast, lightweight, accessible sites.
- Mobile-first — designed for phones first, then scaled up to desktop.
- SEO foundations — clean heading hierarchy, meta tags, structured data, sitemap, and robots.txt from day one (delivered through the SEO & Analytics base pack which is included where the site is being built from scratch).
- Performance optimisation — images compressed, fonts self-hosted, scripts deferred. Targeting 90+ Lighthouse scores.
- Hosting on Cloudflare Pages — global CDN, automatic HTTPS, and near-instant page loads. Hosting is part of the support plan if you stay on for Looked After.
## How it works
1. We start with a conversation about your business, your audience, and what you need from the site.
2. I put together a design spec and wireframe for your review.
3. Once the design is approved, I build the site — typically within 2-4 weeks.
4. You review, we iterate, and then we launch.
# What does SEO cost in Australia? How to read a quote
Source: https://nathanschram.com/blog/seo-cost-australia/
Published: 2026-07-18
Author: Nathan Schram
> **TL;DR:** When I checked what SEO providers advertise in Australia in July 2026, rates ran from about $400 a month to $15,000+, and the price alone tells you almost nothing. What matters is what the quote itemises: the hours, the named tasks, and how results will be reported. This is a plain-English guide to reading an SEO quote - the arithmetic, the questions, and the red flags that should end the conversation.
You've asked around, or filled in a form, and now there's an SEO quote sitting in your inbox. It's probably a monthly retainer, somewhere between one and a few thousand dollars, with a list of inclusions that all sound reasonable and none of which you can independently judge. That's not a knock on you. It's the whole problem with buying SEO: the person quoting knows exactly what the work involves, and you don't.
I'm a digital consultant, not an SEO agency chasing your retainer, so I can say the quiet part: some of these quotes are fair, some are thin, and the price is a terrible way to tell them apart. A $2,500 retainer can be excellent value or mostly reporting theatre. A $700 one can be a genuine starter package or ten minutes of software output with an invoice attached.
So instead of another price list, this is a guide to reading the quote itself. What the numbers should break down into, the questions that expose a thin package, and the red flags that both Google and the ACCC have effectively written down for you.
## What does SEO actually cost in Australia?
Here's what's being advertised. In July 2026 I went through page one of Australian Google results for "SEO cost Australia" - which is almost entirely agencies publishing their own pricing guides - and the advertised rates clustered like this:
| Tier (as advertised) | Advertised monthly range | What's typically claimed at this level |
|---|---|---|
| Entry / basic | ~$400 - $1,500 | Light audit, basic on-page fixes, a few keywords or local directory listings ("citations") |
| Small business / growth | ~$1,500 - $5,000 | Ongoing content, on-page and technical work, some link building |
| National / enterprise | ~$5,000 - $15,000+ | Full strategy, digital PR (outreach for media coverage and links), large content programs |
| Hourly consulting | ~$100 - $300 per hour | Audits, one-off fixes, training |
| One-off audits | ~$2,000 - $5,000+ | Technical or content audit projects |
Two important caveats. These are advertised rates - what providers say on their own pricing pages - not verified data about what anyone pays. And every one of those pricing guides is written by a seller. That doesn't make the numbers wrong, but it does mean page one of Google can't give you an independent answer to "is this quote reasonable?". The people publishing the ranges are the people writing the quotes.
Which is why the range itself is so wide it's nearly useless. "Somewhere between $400 and $15,000 a month" narrows nothing down. The useful question isn't what SEO costs. It's what your specific quote buys.
## Why does the monthly price tell you so little?
Because a retainer is just hours in disguise, and nobody shows you the hours.
SEO is labour. Someone researches your keywords, fixes your pages, writes or edits content, builds links, checks the data, writes the report. All of that takes a person's time, billed to you through the retainer. So the first thing I do with any SEO quote is convert it back into hours: divide the monthly fee by a plausible hourly rate and see what's left.
The same $2,000 buys anywhere from 7 to 20 hours a month depending on who's doing the work. The quote should tell you which.
Run that on your own quote and the questions write themselves. If you're paying $2,000 a month and the going hourly rate is $150 to $200, you're buying about 10 to 13 hours of skilled work. Is that what the inclusions list looks like? Ten hours is a meaningful amount of time - enough to properly improve a couple of pages, fix technical issues, and review the data. It is not enough to "continuously optimise your entire site, produce four blog posts, build authoritative links and provide comprehensive reporting", which is roughly what some inclusion lists imply.
And there's a second cost hiding in the arithmetic: the annual number. A $2,000 monthly retainer is a $24,000 yearly commitment. Almost nobody says it out loud, and every quote should be judged at that scale.
> **Try this:** take the monthly fee on your quote and divide it by $150. That's a rough ceiling on the hours of skilled work you're buying each month. Then multiply the fee by 12. Now re-read the inclusions list with both numbers in mind and ask whether the maths holds together.
## What should a good SEO quote itemise?
A readable quote tells you what will be done, by whom, in what timeframe, and how you'll know it worked. Vague inclusions are where thin packages hide, so the test is simple: could you tell, three months in, whether each line item actually happened?
Here's what I'd want to see itemised, and what each line is really telling you:
| Quote element | What good looks like | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Which pages, which keywords or topics, what's excluded | Whether "your website" means five pages or fifty |
| Named tasks | "Rewrite the three service pages", not "on-page optimisation" | Tasks you can verify happened |
| Time or volume | Hours per month, or counted deliverables | Whether the fee matches the labour |
| Timeline | What happens in months 1-3 vs ongoing | Early months should be heavier: audit, fixes, foundations |
| Reporting | Enquiries and conversions, not just rankings and traffic | Whether they measure what pays your bills |
| Ownership and access | You keep admin of your own site, analytics and Search Console | Whether leaving them later is painful |
| Contract terms | Month-to-month or short initial term, clear exit | Confidence in their own work |
The reporting row deserves special attention. Rankings and traffic are how SEO work is measured; enquiries are why you're paying for it. A report that shows keyword movements but never mentions what happened to your enquiries is measuring the work, not the outcome. Any provider working on your site should be comfortable reporting both - and if your tracking can't currently tell you where enquiries come from, that's worth fixing before the retainer starts, not after.
Ownership matters more than people expect. Checking who controls your website, analytics and accounts is one of the first things I look at on any site. The SEO version: everything should be built in accounts you own, with the provider given access - not the other way round. If the content, the tracking, or the Search Console access lives in their accounts, the price of leaving quietly goes up.
> **Try this:** for each inclusion on your quote, ask "how would I verify this happened?". If the honest answer is "I couldn't", ask the provider to re-word it until you could. A good one will happily do this. A thin package can't survive it.
## What does reading a quote look like?
Fast, once you know what to look for. Here's the kind of quote that lands in inboxes - a made-up but realistic one - read the way I'd read it in about five minutes.
> **"SEO Growth Package" - $2,000/month, 12-month term**
> - Ongoing on-page optimisation
> - 4 blog posts per month
> - Link building
> - Monthly ranking report
Start with the arithmetic. At $150 to $200 an hour, $2,000 buys 10 to 13 hours a month. Four written blog posts could eat most of that on their own, which leaves almost nothing for the "ongoing optimisation" and "link building" the same four lines promise. So either the posts are thin, or the other work is - at this price the quote can't be doing all four properly.
Then the reporting line. It's a "ranking report", not enquiries - measuring the work, not the outcome you're paying for. And the 12-month term arrives with no mention of an exit, which quietly moves the risk onto you.
None of this makes the provider dishonest. It makes the quote, as written, unable to answer the only question that matters: what am I actually buying? That's not a reason to walk away. It's the list of things to ask before you sign.
## Which red flags should end the conversation?
Some warning signs aren't judgement calls, because Google and the ACCC have already made the judgement for you.
**Ranking guarantees.** Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO says it flatly: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." The same page goes further - if a provider guarantees their changes will give you first place in search results, Google's advice is to "find someone else" ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo)). This isn't pedantry. Nobody outside Google controls Google's results, so a guarantee is either naive or dishonest, and both are disqualifying in someone you're about to hand your website to.
**Guaranteed leads or revenue.** Same logic, and in Australia there's a legal layer too. The ACCC's rule for advertising is that claims "should be true, accurate and based on reasonable grounds", and that "a business must be able to prove any claim they advertise" - including claims about future results ([ACCC](https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-and-promotions/false-or-misleading-claims)). A provider who guarantees outcomes they can't control is showing you how they handle claims generally. Believe them.
**A "special relationship" with Google.** There isn't one. Google's hiring guidance warns specifically about SEOs who "allege a 'special relationship' with Google", and states that Google "never accepts money to include or rank sites in our search results" - organic placement can't be bought, by anyone ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo)). Anyone implying priority access is selling something that doesn't exist.
**Lock-in contracts with no early exit.** Twelve-month minimums with heavy exit clauses shift all the risk to you. There are legitimate reasons SEO takes months to show results, and a provider can explain that honestly while still offering a reasonable exit. A long lock-in plus vague deliverables is the worst combination on this list.
Then there's the most common one: reports with no enquiry numbers. If the sample report is all rankings graphs and no "here's what happened to your enquiries", the retainer is being marked on its own homework. Ask to see a real (anonymised) monthly report before you sign. It tells you more than the sales deck does.
**Secrecy about methods.** Google's hiring guidance warns about providers who won't clearly explain what they intend to do, and notes that you're ultimately responsible for the actions of anyone you hire - deceptive work done on your behalf can get your site removed from Google's index entirely. "It's proprietary" is not an acceptable answer to "what will you actually do?".
**Unsolicited approaches.** The "I visited your website and noticed you're not ranking" email. Google's documentation says it receives that same spam itself, and suggests treating it with the scepticism you'd apply to miracle diet pills. I'd add: the providers worth hiring are generally busy enough not to cold-email strangers.
None of these red flags is about price. A cheap quote and an expensive one can both wave them. That's the point of reading the quote instead of the number.
## What should you ask before you sign?
Google publishes an interview list for exactly this situation, and it's surprisingly good. Here's my short version, blending Google's questions with the ones I'd add as an independent set of eyes:
1. **Can you show me examples of your work and put me in touch with a past client?** References are the closest thing to proof this industry has.
2. **What will you do in the first 90 days, specifically?** You want named tasks, not "we'll begin optimising".
3. **How many hours a month does this fee buy, roughly?** Watch how comfortable they are answering. The arithmetic section above is your calibration.
4. **How will you report results, and will enquiries be in the report?** The answer should mention your goals, not just rankings.
5. **What results do you expect, and over what timeframe?** Honest answers hedge. SEO timelines really are uncertain, so confidence here should worry you more than caution.
6. **Do you follow Google's Search Essentials, and can you cite Google's documentation for your recommendations?** Google explicitly suggests checking that advice aligns with its official guidance - including for AI-search or "GEO" services, where its published position is that there's no separate trick beyond good SEO.
7. **What's your experience in my industry and my area?** Straight from Google's list, and doubly useful for local businesses.
8. **What happens when we part ways?** Who owns the content, the tracking, the reporting history? The answer tells you whether they're confident you'll stay.
> **Try this:** before any sales call, open your own [Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console) (it's free, and if it isn't set up yet, that's the first fix). Knowing what you currently rank for - even roughly - changes the conversation from "trust me" to "show me". Google also suggests granting an auditing SEO read-only access at first, not full control.
## Should you be paying for SEO at all yet?
Sometimes the best reading of a quote is "not yet". That's not anti-SEO - done well, it's real, compounding work that can genuinely improve how easily people find you. It's about sequence.
SEO sends more people to your website. It doesn't make those people enquire. If your pages are unclear, hard to trust, or your contact form quietly fails, more traffic just means more people leaving - I've written a whole [checklist of the seven enquiry leaks to fix before you pay for SEO](/blog/seo-enquiry-leaks-checklist), and it's the natural companion to this article. Fix the path first, then pay to send more people down it.
The same logic applies to [Google Ads spend](/blog/google-ads-working): the dollars only make sense once you can see what they produce. If you can't currently tell where your enquiries come from, any SEO retainer is flying blind from day one, and so is its reporting.
When the foundations are sound and the quote reads well - itemised, verifiable, honestly hedged, month-to-month or close to it - then paying for SEO can be a sensible investment. The advertised mid-tier isn't inherently a rip-off. Ten to fifteen skilled hours a month, well spent on a small business site, is real work that most owners can't do themselves.
### Free orientation vs paid diagnosis
This article can help you spot the shape of a good or bad quote. It is not a diagnosis of your website, your current visibility, or whether SEO is the right next spend for your business.
A [Practical Digital Check](/digital-health-check/) is different. I look at the actual evidence - your site, your Search Console data, your enquiry path - and give you an independent read on what's worth paying for, what you can do yourself, and what isn't worth buying yet. Got a quote you can't judge? That's exactly the situation it exists for. And because I don't sell SEO retainers, my answer to "is this quote reasonable?" doesn't come with a competing quote attached. If ongoing search work does make sense, my [SEO and analytics service](/services/seo-and-analytics/) is deliberately built around the same principles this article describes: itemised work, enquiry-first reporting, and accounts you own.
## Tools & Resources
Everything mentioned in this article, plus a few things worth bookmarking before you sign anything.
### Free tools
- **[Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console)** - see what you already rank for, free. Set it up before you buy SEO, and grant auditors read-only access
- **[Google's SEO starter guide](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/seo-starter-guide)** - Google's own plain-language guide to what SEO work actually involves; reading it makes you a harder customer to fool
### Checklists & templates
- **The quote-reading table** - in [the itemisation section above](#the-quote): scope, named tasks, hours, timeline, enquiry-first reporting, ownership, exit terms
- **[The 7 enquiry leaks self-check](/blog/seo-enquiry-leaks-checklist)** - the 20-minute check to run before any SEO spend
### Further reading
- **[Do you need an SEO? (Google Search Central)](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/do-i-need-seo)** - Google's official hiring guidance, including the full interview-question list
- **[False or misleading claims (ACCC)](https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-and-promotions/false-or-misleading-claims)** - the Australian rules on claims, guarantees and proof
---
*Nathan Schram is a digital consultant in Melbourne. Through [Nathan Schram Digital](https://nathanschram.com) he helps small Australian organisations work out what's worth fixing online and what can wait - built for results, not reports.*
# Why your website copy sounds generic (and how to fix it)
Source: https://nathanschram.com/blog/website-copy-sounds-generic/
Published: 2026-07-08
Author: Nathan Schram
> **TL;DR:** AI didn't ruin website copy. It exposed how generic most of it already was. When your words could belong to any business in your industry, you make a stranger do the work of deciding whether you're for them, and most won't bother. The fix is being specific, and it's mostly free. This is a plain-English guide to why copy goes generic, a free "swap test" you can run in two minutes, and three moves to make your words sound like you again. A quick honesty note up front: better copy isn't a magic lead machine, and Google itself says good content doesn't guarantee rankings ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content)). What it does is remove the avoidable reasons people leave without contacting you.
You know the feeling. You read your own website and it's fine. The grammar's right, the pages load, nothing's broken. But it doesn't sound like you, and it doesn't seem to bring in much work. When a small business owner sits down with me and describes their site, the phrase I hear most is "it's fine, it just doesn't do anything."
Here's the uncomfortable part. Your copy, the actual words on your pages, probably reads a lot like your competitor's. Not because you copied them, but because everyone in your industry reaches for the same safe phrases. "Quality service you can trust." "Your local experts." "Passionate about excellence." None of it is wrong. All of it is invisible.
Then AI showed up and made the problem impossible to ignore. Ahrefs studied 900,000 new web pages from April 2025 and found that 74.2% of them contained AI-generated content ([Ahrefs](https://ahrefs.com/blog/what-percentage-of-new-content-is-ai-generated/)). Graphite tracked the shift and found that by November 2024, more new articles were being published by AI than by humans ([Graphite](https://graphite.io/five-percent/more-articles-are-now-created-by-ai-than-humans)). The web filled up with copy that is competent, tidy, and completely interchangeable. Which is oddly good news for you, because specific, human, plainly-written copy now stands out more than it has in years.
So this is a guide to sounding like yourself again. It won't cost you anything to start.
## Why does so much website copy sound the same?
Most generic copy isn't lazy. It's written from the inside out.
You know your business too well. You've been living inside it for years, so you describe it the way you'd describe it to another owner: your values, your history, your process. The trouble is the reader doesn't care about any of that yet. They arrived with a problem and about five seconds of patience, and "we've been proudly serving the community since 2009" answers a question they haven't asked.
There's also fear. Being specific means excluding people, and excluding people feels like turning away money. So the copy hedges. "We work with businesses of all sizes." "Solutions for every need." Every hedge sands off another edge until what's left is smooth, safe, and identical to the shop next door.
And now there's a third pressure. When you ask an AI tool to write your "about" page, it gives you the average of everything it has read, because that is literally what it is built to do. Researchers are starting to name this. A 2026 paper in *Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences* describes large language models as "drivers of cultural homogenization, operating at scales and speeds that exceed all previous technologies" ([SAGE Journals](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23727322251406591)). In plain terms: ask the average machine for copy and you get average copy. It will be clean. It will also sound like everyone.
*The left column could belong to any business. The right column could only belong to one. That's the whole difference.*
## Does generic copy actually cost you anything?
**Yes, in two ways: it loses the reader, and it doesn't even win the search you wrote it for.**
Start with the reader. When your headline could describe any business in your field, you've quietly handed the visitor a job: work out for yourself whether this is the right place. A stranger with a burst pipe or an overdue tax return won't do that job. They'll hit the back button and try the next result. Being specific does that work for them. It tells the right person "you're in the right place" and the wrong person "keep looking," which feels like a loss but is actually a kindness to both of you.
This isn't just my opinion. It's one of the older findings in web usability. When Nielsen Norman Group rewrote a page in concise, scannable, objective language, stripping out the promotional "marketese," measured usability rose by 27% for the objective-language change alone and by 124% when all three improvements were combined. Their finding was blunt: the exaggeration, subjective claims, and boasting of promotional "marketese" were exactly what dragged usability down ([Nielsen Norman Group](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/concise-scannable-and-objective-how-to-write-for-the-web/)). People have never liked being sold to in vague, self-congratulatory language. They just have more alternatives now.
Now the search angle, because this is where a lot of owners assume more content is the answer. It isn't, if the content is generic. Google's own guidance is built around content "created to benefit people," and it says plainly that good content doesn't guarantee rankings ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content)). The data backs the warning. When Graphite analysed roughly 12,000 ranking pages, the ones with little to no AI content made up 88% of the top 20 positions ([Graphite](https://graphite.io/five-percent/ai-content-and-search)). SE Ranking ran the experiment directly, publishing 2,000 AI-written articles across 20 fresh domains and tracking them over 16 months: visibility peaked at about 28% of pages reaching Google's top 100 in the first month, then collapsed to just 3% within about three months of going live ([Search Engine Land](https://searchengineland.com/ai-generated-content-google-search-experiment-472234)).
The lesson isn't "AI bad." It's that the flood of average copy raised the bar for standing out, and generic doesn't clear it, for readers or for Google. If you want the fuller version of how AI search rewards genuinely useful pages, I've written about that in [what GEO actually is](https://nathanschram.com/blog/what-is-geo). And if your problem is really that people arrive but don't contact you, the copy is only one of the leaks worth checking first, which I've laid out in [seven enquiry leaks to check before you pay for SEO](https://nathanschram.com/blog/seo-enquiry-leaks-checklist).
## How do you tell if your copy is generic? The swap test
Before you rewrite anything, find out whether you have a problem. Here are four quick checks. Do them on your own homepage, out loud if you can.
**1. The swap test.** Take any sentence on your homepage and mentally swap your business name for your biggest competitor's. If the sentence is still true, it's generic. "At Smith Plumbing we're committed to quality workmanship" works just as well for Jones Plumbing, which means it works for nobody. This is the fastest tell I know, and it costs nothing.
**2. The stranger test.** You are the worst judge of your own copy because you already know what you mean. So ask something that doesn't. Paste your homepage into an AI tool and ask it to describe you cold.
**3. The "we" count.** Read your homepage and tally how many sentences start with "we," "our," or your business name, versus how many start with "you" or name the reader's problem. If it's mostly "we," your page is a monologue about yourself. Buyers want to read about their world, not your history.
**4. The specificity scan.** Paste your text into a free readability tool like Hemingway. It won't judge whether you're specific, but it flags the vague, overlong, adverb-heavy sentences that generic copy hides in. Clarity and specificity travel together.
> **Try this:** paste your homepage headline and opening paragraph into ChatGPT or Claude and ask, *"Read this as someone who has never heard of this business. In one sentence, what does it do and who is it for? If you can't tell, say so."* A vague or hedged answer is your copy failing the stranger test. It's the same "corporate Mad Libs" the tool would write itself, which is exactly why it recognises it.
Here's the quick reference for all four:
| # | Check | What it reveals | Free? |
|---|-------|-----------------|-------|
| 1 | Swap test | Could this sentence belong to a competitor? | Yes |
| 2 | Stranger test | Can an outsider tell what you do and who for? | Yes |
| 3 | "We" count | Is the page about you or about them? | Yes |
| 4 | Specificity scan | Are you hiding behind vague, complex sentences? | Yes |
Most owners find at least two of these tripping on their own homepage. That's not a failure. It's a list of free things to fix this week.
## How do you fix it? Three moves that work
You don't need to be a copywriter. You need to stop writing like a brochure and start writing like a person who's actually met the customer. Three moves do most of the work.
### Move 1: write to one person, and name them
Generic copy is written to "customers." Good copy is written to a person. Before you touch a sentence, picture the exact human you want to reach, the plumber who dreads BAS time, the couple redoing their kitchen, and write to them by name where you can.
> **Before:** "We provide comprehensive bookkeeping solutions for businesses of all sizes."
>
> **After:** "Bookkeeping for tradies and sole traders who'd rather be on the tools than buried in receipts."
The second one loses the enterprise client. It was never going to call you anyway. What it gains is the sole trader who reads it and thinks, finally, someone who gets my situation.
### Move 2: replace claims with proof
"We're reliable" is a claim. Claims are free, so nobody believes them. Swap the claim for the specific thing that makes it true.
> **Before:** "Fast, reliable emergency electrical service you can count on."
>
> **After:** "Licensed emergency electrician covering Geelong and the Bellarine. Most callouts answered within 30 minutes. Fixed price quoted before I start."
Same promise, but now it's checkable. Numbers, place names, a licence, and a concrete commitment do more than any adjective. If you've got real reviews or a membership number, this is where they earn their keep, right next to the words, not buried on a separate page.
> **Try this:** open your homepage and highlight every adjective - "reliable", "quality", "trusted", "professional". For each one, either swap it for a checkable fact (a number, a place, a licence) or delete it. If nothing's left when you're done, that sentence was never doing any work.
### Move 3: lead with their problem, not your history
The strongest structure I know is almost embarrassingly simple. Lead with the reader's world, bridge through what you do, and land back in their world. It's the four-step shape I use on every page that has to bring in work: what problem are they experiencing, what do they actually want, where do you step in, and what changes for them afterwards.
> **Before:** "Established in 2009, Acme Legal is a full-service firm offering a wide range of legal solutions with a commitment to client satisfaction."
>
> **After:** "Sorting out a will shouldn't feel like homework. I'll walk you through it in plain English, get it done properly, and you'll leave knowing your family is covered. No jargon, no billable-hour surprises."
If you want a named framework to lean on, there are three worth knowing, and they all say a version of the same thing. PAS (problem, agitate, solution) comes from the direct-response tradition Dan Kennedy popularised. AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) has been around since advertising pioneer E. St. Elmo Lewis sketched it in 1898. And Donald Miller's StoryBrand, updated in *Building a StoryBrand 2.0* (2025), casts the customer as the hero and your business as the guide who helps them win. Pick whichever one sticks in your head. The point they share is the point that matters: make it about the reader, not about you.
## Should you use AI to write your copy?
Yes and no, and the line between them matters.
AI is genuinely useful for the scaffolding. Getting unstuck from a blank page, tidying a clumsy sentence, checking whether your meaning survives a cold read, turning your rambling voice note into something structured. I use it for exactly that kind of thing every day.
Where it falls down is the part that makes your copy yours. Ask a model to write your positioning and it reaches for the middle of everything it has seen, which is the same middle your competitors landed in. The homogenising pull is real, and it's being measured, not just grumbled about ([SAGE Journals](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/23727322251406591)). The specific detail, the strong opinion, the phrase only your customers would recognise, that has to come from you, because the machine has never met your customer.
So the honest workflow is this: bring the specifics, let AI help with the shape. Write the true, specific sentences yourself, then use a tool to make them clearer, not to invent them. And whatever you do, don't let it slip in claims you can't stand behind. "Award-winning" and "industry-leading" that never happened aren't just AI tics, they're the sort of unsubstantiated claim Australian consumer law expects you to be able to back up. If it isn't true and specific, cut it.
## When is this worth paying someone for?
Most of what's above you can do yourself, this week, for nothing. Run the four checks, apply the three moves, read it aloud. That alone will lift a lot of small-business sites out of the sameness.
Where it gets genuinely hard is the part you can't see from the inside. Deciding what you actually stand for when you're too close to it. Working out which of your customers to write to when you serve a few different types. And the bigger question underneath all of it: is the copy even the real problem, or is it the offer, the layout, or the fact that the right people aren't finding the page at all? Answering that honestly is harder than rewriting a headline, and it's the bit worth a second opinion.
### Free orientation vs paid diagnosis
This article can help you spot the shape of the problem. It isn't a full diagnosis of your website, your messaging, or why enquiries aren't coming in.
A Practical Digital Check is different. I look at the actual pages, the way people arrive, and what happens when they get there, then tell you what matters, what can wait, and what you can genuinely fix yourself.
If you want a second set of eyes on whether your copy is the problem or a symptom, [book a Practical Digital Check](https://nathanschram.com/digital-health-check/). And if the honest answer is that the whole site is fighting you, not just the words, that's [web design](https://nathanschram.com/services/web-design/) territory, where the copy and the build get sorted together rather than one after the other.
## Tools & Resources
Everything you need to de-generic your copy is free.
### Free tools
- **[Hemingway Editor](https://hemingwayapp.com/)** - flags hard-to-read sentences, passive voice, and needless complexity. Generic copy loves to hide in long, vague sentences, and this drags them into the light.
- **[LanguageTool](https://languagetool.org/)** - a free grammar and clarity checker (no account needed for the basics). Good for a plain-English second pass.
- **[Readability Check](https://readabilitycheck.com/)** - runs your text through six readability formulas at once and gives a consensus grade. Aim for something a busy, distracted customer can skim.
- **[Grammarly](https://www.grammarly.com/)** - free tier for grammar and tone. Useful as a final polish, not a substitute for having something specific to say.
### Sample prompts
- **The stranger test** - paste your homepage and ask ChatGPT or Claude: *"Read this as someone who's never heard of this business. In one sentence, what does it do and who is it for? If you can't tell, say so."*
- **The de-jargon pass** - paste a paragraph and ask: *"Rewrite this so a busy 55-year-old with no marketing background understands it on first read. Keep every specific fact. Cut anything that could describe any business."*
- **The you-not-we flip** - paste your "about" intro and ask: *"Rewrite this to lead with the customer's problem instead of the company's history. Don't invent anything, only reorder and reframe what's here."*
### A five-minute copy self-check
- Run the swap test on your headline and your first paragraph.
- Count your "we" sentences against your "you" sentences.
- Read the page aloud. Anywhere you'd never actually say those words to a customer, rewrite them.
---
If the deeper worry is that people arrive and still don't contact you, the copy is only one of the leaks worth checking. I've mapped the rest in [seven enquiry leaks to check before you pay for SEO](https://nathanschram.com/blog/seo-enquiry-leaks-checklist). Fix the words first, though. It's the one item on this list you can do this afternoon, for nothing.
---
*[Nathan Schram](https://nathanschram.com/about/) is a digital consultant in Melbourne. Through [Nathan Schram Digital](https://nathanschram.com) he helps small Australian organisations work out what's worth fixing online and what can wait - built for results, not reports.*
# Before you pay for SEO: 7 enquiry leaks to check first
Source: https://nathanschram.com/blog/seo-enquiry-leaks-checklist/
Published: 2026-06-14
Author: Nathan Schram
> **TL;DR:** SEO sends more people to your website. It doesn't make those people enquire. If your page is unclear, hard to trust, or hard to act on, paying for more traffic just sends more people down a leaky path. This is a plain-English checklist of the seven places enquiries leak out before SEO is the right spend, with a 20-minute self-check you can run today. Google itself says its ranking systems reward content created to benefit people, not clever tricks ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content)) - so before you buy visibility, make sure the page can do its job.
You've been told you need SEO. Maybe you're already paying for it and the enquiries still aren't coming. Either way the story usually sounds the same when a small business owner sits down with me: "we get some traffic, but nothing really happens."
I hear it a lot. And before you sign up for another retainer, I want to offer a calmer way to look at it.
SEO - getting found on Google - is one part of how a stranger turns into an enquiry. It isn't the whole path. Someone has to find you, land on a page, work out that you're for them, trust you enough, and then actually do something about it. SEO only handles the first step. If the rest of that path leaks, more visitors just means more people quietly leaving.
So this is a checklist for the bit most people skip: whether your website can convert the attention you already get, before you pay to send it more.
## Why can paying for SEO be the wrong first move?
More traffic only helps if the page it lands on does its job. Google is surprisingly blunt about this in its own guidance. Its ranking systems are built to reward content "created to benefit people," not content made to game rankings ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content)). Even Google is telling you what I am: the foundation is a clear, useful page, not a clever trick.
That matters for your money. If you pay to be found while the page itself confuses people, you're paying to fill a leaky bucket. The water goes in the top and straight out the bottom, and the monthly invoice never quite explains why the phone isn't ringing.
None of this is anti-SEO. SEO is useful once the basics are sound. I'm pro-sequence: check the path first, then pay to send more people down it. A quick note before we start - nobody can promise you a number of leads or a position on Google, me included. What you can do is remove the obvious reasons people leave. That's within your control, and it's usually free.
Here are the seven leaks I check first.
*The enquiry path. SEO only handles the first step - the other four are where enquiries leak out.*
At a glance, here's what you're checking:
| # | The leak | What to check | Free to fix yourself? |
|---|----------|---------------|-----------------------|
| 1 | Who it's for | Does the headline name who you help? | Yes |
| 2 | Vague next step | Is there one obvious, small action? | Yes |
| 3 | Contact mismatch | Does contact match buyer urgency? | Yes |
| 4 | Broken form | Does your own test enquiry arrive? | Usually |
| 5 | Weak trust proof | Real, specific proof near the call to action? | Yes |
| 6 | Mobile friction | Can you enquire one-thumbed on a phone? | Sometimes |
| 7 | No tracking | Are Search Console and GA4 set up? | Setup needed |
## Leak 1: does your page say who it's actually for?
Someone lands on your page. In about five seconds they're deciding whether you're for them. If your headline could belong to any business in your industry - "quality service you can trust", "your local experts" - you've made a stranger do the work of placing themselves. Most won't bother.
The fix is specificity. "Bookkeeping for tradies and sole traders" tells the right person they're in the right place, and tells the wrong person to move on. That second part feels scary, like you're turning away business. You're not. You're saving a plumber from wondering whether you also do plumbing.
> **Try this:** open your homepage and read only the headline. Does it name who you help and what you do, in words your customer would use? If a friend outside your industry couldn't tell what you sell, that's leak one.
## Leak 2: is your offer or next step too vague?
This is the most common one I see, and it costs the most.
A page that converts does two small things well. It makes one next step obvious, and it makes that step feel small. "Book a 15-minute call." "Get a quote." "Ask one question." Compare that to a lone "Contact us" floating in the header, which asks a busy person to compose an email from scratch about a thing they haven't fully decided on yet.
The mistake isn't usually a missing button. It's offering five next steps with equal weight - call, email, newsletter, social, contact form - so none of them stands out. Pick the one action you most want, and make it the loudest thing on the page.
You can fix a lot of this yourself in an afternoon. Rename the main button so it says the actual next step. Demote the rest. You don't need a developer for that.
## Leak 3: are your contact options buried or mismatched?
People arrive with different levels of urgency, and your contact options should match. A tradie with a burst pipe wants a phone number they can tap, right now, not a form that promises a reply "within two business days". Someone researching an accountant for next financial year is happy to fill in a form.
The leak appears when the option doesn't match the urgency. A phone number hidden in the footer loses the urgent caller. A form-only page with no phone number loses anyone who needs to talk to a human before they commit.
> **Try this:** on your phone, time how long it takes you to find a way to contact yourself from your own homepage. If it's more than a few seconds, or the only option is a generic form, that's a leak - especially for urgent work.
The fix is rarely "add more options". It's making the right one obvious for the way your customers actually buy.
## Leak 4: when did you last test your own form?
Forms break quietly. The notification email starts landing in spam. A required field rejects valid phone numbers. The "submit" button does nothing on one browser. The enquiry goes to an inbox nobody checks. None of this shows up as an error you'd notice - it shows up as silence, which you then blame on "not enough traffic".
A long form leaks too. Every field you ask for is a small reason to give up. Name, email, and one line about the job is usually enough to start a conversation. You can ask for the rest once they've replied.
> **Try this:** fill in your own contact form right now, from your phone, as if you were a customer. Use a real address you can check. Did the enquiry arrive? How long did it take? Was the reply-to address correct? Most owners have never done this, and a surprising number find the email going nowhere.
In my experience this one test recovers more lost enquiries than most owners expect, and it costs nothing.
## Leak 5: would a stranger trust you in five seconds?
Trust proof is the quiet decider. A stranger who's never heard of you is scanning for reasons to believe you're real and competent. Generic stock photos and "we pride ourselves on quality" don't do that. Specific proof does: a handful of real reviews with names, a photo of the actual team or the actual work, the suburbs you serve, a licence or membership number where it matters.
The mistake is hiding the proof you already have. Plenty of businesses have a wall of happy clients and a glowing set of Google reviews, none of which appear on the page where the decision happens. If you've earned the trust, show it where people are deciding.
You don't need dozens of testimonials. Three specific, believable ones near your call to action will do more than a generic "trusted by hundreds".
## Leak 6: what does your site look like on a phone?
Most of your visitors are on a phone, and there's a good chance you mostly look at your site on a desktop. That gap is where mobile leaks hide: text too small to read, buttons too close together to tap, a pop-up that can't be closed with a thumb, a phone number that isn't tappable. If your mobile site is also slow to load, that's a related problem I've covered separately in [Core Web Vitals for small business](https://nathanschram.com/blog/core-web-vitals-small-business-2026).
It matters for being found too, not just for converting. Google indexes the mobile version of your site, a practice it calls mobile-first indexing, and it's explicit that "only the content shown on the mobile site is used for indexing" ([Google Search Central](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/mobile/mobile-sites-mobile-first-indexing)). If your mobile site quietly drops content your desktop site shows, you're weakening the very visibility you're about to pay for.
> **Try this:** open your site on your own phone and try to complete an enquiry with one thumb, standing up, in a hurry. Whatever annoys you is annoying every mobile visitor you've got.
## Leak 7: can you even see what's happening?
Here's the leak under all the others: most small businesses can't actually see where they're losing people, so every decision is a guess.
Two free tools change that, and neither works until it's set up. Google Search Console shows what people searched before they reached you - its Performance report gives you clicks, impressions, click-through rate, and average position ([Google Search Console Help](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7576553)). That tells you whether you have a visibility problem or an enquiry problem.
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can show you whether visitors actually do anything, but only if you tell it what counts. Form submissions and enquiries aren't tracked automatically. You have to configure a key event - GA4 calls the lead one `generate_lead` - and Google notes these events "require additional context to be meaningful, they're not sent automatically" ([Google Analytics Help](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9267735)). Until that's set up, your analytics can show a thousand visitors and tell you nothing about how many tried to contact you.
If you can't see the enquiry path, you can't tell whether SEO is the problem worth paying to fix. That's the honest reason tracking comes first.
## How do you check all seven in 20 minutes?
You don't need a developer or an audit tool to find most of this. Set a timer and, on your phone, work through these:
1. Read your headline. Does it name who you help and what you do? (Leak 1)
2. Find the single most obvious next step. Is there one, and is it small? (Leak 2)
3. Time how long it takes to find a way to contact you. (Leak 3)
4. Submit your own contact form and check the enquiry actually arrives. (Leak 4)
5. Look for real, specific trust proof near the call to action. (Leak 5)
6. Try to complete an enquiry one-thumbed on your phone. (Leak 6)
7. Open Search Console and GA4. Are they set up, and is a lead event being recorded? (Leak 7)
Most owners find two or three leaks in twenty minutes. The first few are usually free to fix and don't need anyone's help. That's the point: you can recover lost enquiries this week without spending on traffic at all.
## When is SEO actually worth paying for?
Once the path holds water, SEO earns its keep. If your page is clear, your form works, your trust proof is visible, and your tracking shows people are reaching you but you simply need more of them - that's exactly when paying to be found makes sense. At that point more visibility turns into more enquiries instead of more silence.
The sequence is the whole point. Fix the leaks first because they're free and fast. Then look at SEO, or paid ads, or whatever channel suits you, knowing the traffic you buy has somewhere worthwhile to land. And when the quotes start arriving, I've written a companion guide on [what SEO costs in Australia and how to read a quote before you sign](/blog/seo-cost-australia) - the arithmetic and red flags that separate a fair retainer from a thin one. If you want to go deeper on the foundations, my [SEO and analytics](https://nathanschram.com/services/seo-and-analytics/) work is about exactly this - making sure search and the measurement underneath it are sound before anything gets scaled. If the leaks are really about the site itself, that's [web design](https://nathanschram.com/services/web-design/) territory.
### Free orientation vs paid diagnosis
This article can help you spot the shape of the problem. It isn't a full diagnosis of your website, analytics, forms, search visibility or enquiry path.
A Digital Health Check is different. I look at the actual evidence - the page, the tracking, the form, the way enquiries are handled - and tell you what matters, what can wait, and what you can genuinely do yourself.
If you want a second set of eyes on what's actually broken and what can wait, [book a Digital Health Check](https://nathanschram.com/digital-health-check/). It's the smallest sensible next step before paying to send more people at the problem.
## Tools & Resources
Everything you need to run the checks above is free.
### Free tools
- **[Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console)** - shows what people searched before reaching you (clicks, impressions, position). Tells you whether you have a visibility problem or an enquiry problem.
- **[Google Analytics 4](https://analytics.google.com/)** - shows what visitors do once they arrive, but only after you set up a `generate_lead` key event for form submissions and enquiries.
- **[Google's Mobile-Friendly check via PageSpeed Insights](https://pagespeed.web.dev/)** - run your homepage and read the mobile result first. The mobile experience is the one Google indexes.
### Sample prompts
- **Test your headline clarity** - paste your homepage headline into ChatGPT or Claude:
*"Read this website headline as someone who has never heard of this business. In one sentence, what does this business do and who is it for? If you can't tell, say so."*
A vague answer is leak one.
- **Pressure-test your next step** - paste your homepage text and ask:
*"What is the single most obvious next step on this page? Is it clear and low-effort, or are there several competing options?"*
### A 5-minute monthly check
- Submit your own contact form from your phone and confirm the enquiry arrives.
- Open Search Console: are impressions and clicks trending up, flat, or down?
- Open GA4: is your lead event still recording? (It breaks more often than you'd think.)
---
The two articles I'd point you to next - a deeper look at why website forms lose enquiries, and a guide on when *not* to pay for SEO yet - aren't published here yet. When they are, I'll link them from this page.
---
*Nathan Schram is a digital consultant in Melbourne. Through [Nathan Schram Digital](https://nathanschram.com) he helps small Australian organisations work out what's worth fixing online and what can wait - built for results, not reports.*
# Local SEO for Melbourne businesses: a practical 2026 guide
Source: https://nathanschram.com/blog/local-seo-melbourne-2026/
Published: 2026-04-30
Author: Nathan Schram
> **TL;DR:** 46% of Google searches have local intent, yet most of the Melbourne businesses I audit have never properly set up their Google Business Profile. If you run a Melbourne business and you're not showing up in the Map Pack, you're invisible to the people most ready to buy. This guide covers GBP setup, reviews, Australian citation directories, schema markup, and a checklist you can action this week.
Most of the small business owners I work with in Melbourne have spent good money on a website. Some of them have even sorted out their [Core Web Vitals](https://nathanschram.com/blog/core-web-vitals-small-business-2026) (nice one if you have). When I ask them to Google their own business name plus their suburb, things get quiet.
Either their business doesn't show up at all, or it shows up with the wrong address, no photos, and zero reviews. Their competitor down the road - the one with the worse website - is sitting right there in the Map Pack with 87 reviews and a 4.8-star rating.
That's local SEO at work. It's not about having the fanciest website. It's about making sure Google knows where you are, what you do, and that real customers vouch for you.
The pattern I keep seeing is the same. The business owner didn't know Google Business Profile existed, or they claimed it three years ago and never opened it again. They had no idea reviews were a ranking factor. Their phone number was listed differently on four different directory sites.
This guide is the conversation I have with every new client. Everything in here is specific to Melbourne and Australia, based on what's actually working right now.
---
## What is local SEO and why does it matter for Melbourne businesses?
Local SEO is the practice of making your business visible when someone nearby searches for what you sell. Not just on your website. In Google Maps, in the Map Pack (that three-business box at the top of local search results), and increasingly in AI-generated answers.
The scale of local search catches people off guard. 46% of all Google searches carry local intent ([LocalIQ](https://localiq.com/blog/local-seo-statistics/), 2026). Nearly half the time someone types anything into Google, they're looking for something near them. "Plumber Northcote." "Best coffee Richmond." "Accountant near me."
Melbourne is one of the most competitive local search markets in the country - 5.3 million people, hundreds of suburbs, and a café or tradie around every corner.
Here's the bit that matters for your bottom line: 76% of people who search for something nearby on their phone visit a business within a day ([Think with Google](https://web.archive.org/web/20260122002221/https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-emea/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-world/), 2016). These aren't people browsing. They're people with their wallet out, ready to spend, looking for a business that shows up first.
And 97% of them are reading your reviews before they decide ([BrightLocal](https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/), 2026).
> **Try this:** Open Google in an incognito window and search for *[your business name] [your suburb]*. Then search for your main service plus your suburb, e.g. *plumber Northcote* or *accountant Brunswick*. If your business doesn't show up in the right-hand panel or the Map Pack at the top, you've already found the work.
---
## How does Google decide which local businesses to show first?
Google's local search algorithm works on three pillars. They've been consistent about this for years, and their official documentation spells it out ([Google Business Help](https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091), 2026):
**Relevance** - Does your business match what the person searched for? This comes from your business categories, your description, your website content, and the words people use in their reviews about you.
**Prominence** - How well-known is your business? Google measures this through reviews, citations (how many directory sites mention you), backlinks, and your overall online presence. A business with 200 reviews and listings on 15 directories outranks one with 3 reviews and no directory presence.
**Distance** - How close is the searcher to your business? This is the one you can't control. If someone searches "plumber" while standing in Fitzroy, Google favours Fitzroy plumbers. You can't game your way around proximity, and anyone claiming they can is probably charging you too much.
The first two are entirely within your control. The third is geography.
The gap between the Map Pack and everything below it is stark:
[SOCi](https://www.soci.ai/insights/top-ranking-and-conversion-factors-for-local-search-fb/) analysed more than 300,000 Google listings and found that businesses in the local 3-pack earn 126% more search traffic, and 93% more customer actions like calls, website clicks and direction requests, than the businesses sitting just below them in positions four through ten. If you're not in the Map Pack, you're fighting over what's left.
So the question becomes: how do you get into the Map Pack? That starts with your Google Business Profile.
---
## Why is your Google Business Profile the most important thing to get right?
Every year, Whitespark surveys dozens of local SEO experts about what actually moves the needle. In 2026, 47 practitioners assessed 187 ranking factors. The result? Google Business Profile signals came out on top ([Whitespark](https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors/), 2026). Not your website. Not your backlinks. Your GBP.
And plenty of businesses don't have one at all. BrightLocal's 2025 survey of 778 small business owners found only 35% had a Google Business Profile ([BrightLocal](https://www.brightlocal.com/research/smb-marketing-2025/), 2025). That's a US sample, so treat it as a pattern rather than an Australian number, but it matches what I see here.
If you haven't claimed yours, that's the first thing to fix. Go to [business.google.com](https://business.google.com), search for your business, and follow the verification process. Google will typically send a postcard to your physical address with a verification code.
> **Try this:** Log in to [Google Business Profile manager](https://www.google.com/business/) right now. Check every field — categories, hours, services, attributes, products, photos. Empty fields hurt your prominence score. Fill what's blank in the next 20 minutes. Most of it costs nothing but attention.
Once it's claimed, the details matter:
**Business name** - Use your real trading name. Don't stuff keywords in here ("Melbourne's Best Plumber - 24/7 Emergency Plumbing Services" will get you suspended). Just your actual business name as it appears on your signage and paperwork ([Google Business Help](https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177), 2026).
**Primary category** - This is the single most impactful field on your entire profile. Choose the most specific category that describes your core business. "Plumber" beats "Contractor." "Vietnamese Restaurant" beats "Restaurant." You get one primary and up to nine secondary categories.
**Business description** - You have 750 characters. Focus on what you do and where you do it. No promotional pricing, no links, no keyword stuffing. This isn't ad copy. It's your elevator pitch to Google.
**Photos** - Businesses with 15-20 photos get more clicks and calls than those with fewer. Upload your shopfront, your team, your work, your products. Real photos. Not stock images.
**Hours** - Keep these accurate. If you close on public holidays, update it. Google filters out businesses that are currently closed, and if your hours are wrong, you're invisible during the times your customers are actually searching.
**Posts** - Google lets you publish updates, offers, and events directly on your profile. Most businesses ignore this. Posting once a week signals to Google that your profile is active and maintained.
Getting your GBP right is free. It takes an afternoon. And it has more impact on whether locals find you than almost anything you can spend money on.
---
## What do reviews actually do for local rankings?
Reviews account for roughly 20% of Google's local pack ranking calculation ([Whitespark](https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors/), 2026), up from 17% in the 2023 edition. That might not sound like much, until you see what's changed in consumer behaviour over the past two years.
The BrightLocal 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey talked to over 1,000 consumers, and the numbers are stark ([BrightLocal](https://www.brightlocal.com/research/local-consumer-review-survey/), 2026):
- **97%** of consumers read reviews for local businesses
- **68%** will only use a business with 4+ star ratings (up from 55% in 2025)
- **31%** now require 4.5 stars or higher (up from 17% in 2025)
- **74%** want reviews written in the last three months (and 32% now want them from the last fortnight)
- **47%** won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews
- **89%** expect businesses to respond to reviews
The expectations are climbing fast:
That AI tools number is the one that jumps out. 45% of consumers are now using ChatGPT and similar tools to find local businesses, up from just 6% in 2025. Your reviews aren't just being read by humans anymore. They're being summarised by AI and served as recommendations. 82% of consumers now read AI-generated review summaries, and 23% are willing to make decisions based on those summaries alone.
> **Try this prompt:** Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, replacing the brackets with your details:
> *"I'm in [your suburb, Melbourne] looking for a [your service]. Who would you recommend, and why?"*
> Then run it again with your business name explicitly:
> *"What does [your business name] in [your suburb] do, and would you recommend them?"*
> Compare the answers across all three. If you're missing from the recommendation, or the description is vague or wrong, that's a GBP/reviews/citations gap. The AIs are pulling from the same signals Google uses for the Map Pack — so a fix here usually fixes both.
For your review strategy, the practical takeaways:
**Ask for reviews consistently.** Not once. Every time you finish a job. A simple follow-up text with a link to your Google review page works. The businesses I work with that do this consistently get 4-8 new reviews per month, which is enough to stay current.
**Respond to every review.** 89% of consumers expect it. Personalise the response. 50% of consumers said they'd avoid a business that uses generic, copy-paste responses. Mention something specific about their experience.
**Don't panic about the occasional bad review.** A perfect 5.0 rating actually looks suspicious to most people. What matters is how you respond to the negative ones. A thoughtful, professional reply to a one-star review tells potential customers more about you than fifty five-star reviews.
---
## Where should Melbourne businesses list themselves online?
Your business details need to be consistent across every place they appear online. Google cross-references these listings - they're called "citations" in SEO - and inconsistencies hurt your rankings.
NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. All three need to match exactly across every listing. Not "St" on one and "Street" on another. Not your mobile on one and your office line on another. Exactly the same.
> **Try this:** Search your business phone number on Google (in quotes — *"03 9555 1234"*). Every result that lists your business should show your current name, address, and phone in the same format. Mismatches you spot today are mismatches Google is using to weight your rankings down. Make a list, fix the easy ones in the next hour, and chase the rest over the next few weeks.
Here are the Australian directories worth your time:
| Directory | Notes |
|-----------|-------|
| [Yellow Pages Australia](https://www.yellowpages.com.au) | The best-known Australian directory. Free basic listing |
| [True Local](https://www.truelocal.com.au) | Long-running Australian directory |
| [StartLocal](https://www.startlocal.com.au) | Australian-specific, free basic listing |
| [Yelp Australia](https://www.yelp.com.au) | Global platform with Australian presence |
| [Localsearch](https://www.localsearch.com.au) | Service-focused Australian directory |
| [AussieWeb](https://www.aussieweb.com.au) | Regional focus |
| [Hotfrog](https://www.hotfrog.com.au) | Free listing available |
*Directory authority and traffic shift over time, and the third-party "domain authority" scores that circulate for these sites are often years out of date. Don't pay for a premium listing on the strength of one.*
Start with Google, Bing Places, Apple Maps, and Facebook. Those are the four big ones. Then work through Yellow Pages and True Local (the two best-known Australian directories). After that, add industry-specific directories relevant to your trade.
The rule of thumb is 15-20 quality listings across major directories for real local SEO benefit. Most Melbourne businesses I audit have between two and five. There's usually easy ground to make up here.
One thing I always warn clients about: some of these directories push hard on upsells. You don't need to pay for premium listings on most of them. A free listing with accurate NAP info is enough. The value is in the citation itself, not the paid extras.
---
## How to add local schema markup to your website
Schema markup is code you add to your website that tells Google what your business is and where it's located. It won't change how your site looks. It runs in the background, giving search engines data they can use to show your business info in search results.
If you've ever seen a business in Google search results with their opening hours, star rating, and address displayed right there in the listing, schema markup is what makes that happen.
Google recommends JSON-LD format for structured data ([Google Developers](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/local-business), 2026). Here's what a LocalBusiness schema looks like for a Melbourne business:
```json
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Plumber",
"name": "Smith Street Plumbing",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "123 Smith Street",
"addressLocality": "Fitzroy",
"addressRegion": "VIC",
"postalCode": "3065",
"addressCountry": "AU"
},
"telephone": "+61-3-9555-1234",
"url": "https://www.smithstreetplumbing.com.au",
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": -37.8002,
"longitude": 144.9782
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": [
"Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday",
"Thursday", "Friday"
],
"opens": "07:00",
"closes": "17:00"
}
],
"image": "https://www.smithstreetplumbing.com.au/images/storefront.jpg",
"priceRange": "$$"
}
```
A few things to get right:
**Use the most specific @type.** Don't use "LocalBusiness" when "Plumber" or "Restaurant" or "DaySpa" exists. Google has hundreds of specific business types. The more specific you are, the more useful the data is to search engines. The full list is on [schema.org](https://schema.org/LocalBusiness).
**Match your GBP data.** Your schema markup should reflect exactly the same name, address, phone number, and hours as your Google Business Profile. Mismatches weaken both signals.
**Include geo coordinates.** Use at least five decimal places for latitude and longitude. You can get these from Google Maps by right-clicking on your location.
**Validate before publishing.** Run your page through the [Google Rich Results Test](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results) to check for errors. Then use the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console to confirm Google has picked it up.
If this looks like something you'd rather not deal with yourself, that's fair. For a broader look at how structured data connects to AI-powered search, I wrote about that in the context of [GEO and AI search optimisation](https://nathanschram.com/blog/what-is-geo).
Your developer or SEO person should be able to add this in under an hour. It's a one-time job that keeps working indefinitely.
---
## Mobile and voice search: how Australians actually find local businesses
If you're still thinking about local search as someone sitting at a computer typing keywords, that picture is about five years out of date. 57% of local searches now happen on mobile devices ([Semrush](https://www.semrush.com/blog/local-seo-statistics/), 2026). And the behaviour on mobile is different. It's faster, more immediate, and more likely to end in a purchase.
76% of people who search for something nearby on their phone visit a related business within a day ([Think with Google](https://web.archive.org/web/20260122002221/https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-emea/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/mobile-world/), 2016). These are high-intent searchers. They're walking around Collingwood looking for a place to eat. They're in Coburg with a busted hot water system. They need something now, and they're going to pick the first business that looks legitimate.
Voice search is making this even more immediate. The caveat: the good voice-search research is old, and most statistics roundups quietly re-date it every year. Here it is at its real vintage.
BrightLocal found that 76% of smart speaker owners use them to search for a local business at least weekly ([BrightLocal](https://www.brightlocal.com/research/voice-search-for-local-business-study/), 2018). "Hey Siri, find a locksmith near me." "OK Google, best Thai restaurant in Brunswick."
Voice queries are longer and more conversational than typed searches. Backlinko's analysis of 10,000 Google Home results found the average voice answer runs just 29 words ([Backlinko](https://backlinko.com/voice-search-seo-study), 2018), which means the assistant is looking for concise, direct answers to serve back. That means the content on your website and in your GBP description needs to answer the kind of questions people actually ask out loud. Not keyword-stuffed bullet points. Natural, conversational answers to real questions.
The businesses that show up in voice search tend to have strong Google Business Profiles, good review scores, and accurate info. A SEMrush study found more than 80% of Google Assistant answers came from the top three organic results ([via Search Engine Journal](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/80-of-voice-search-answers-are-from-top-3-organic-results-study/311513/), 2019). Having your business information structured clearly - with schema markup and a well-maintained GBP - gives you the best chance of being the answer.
---
## What can you do this week?
You don't need to do everything at once. Here are seven practical things, ordered by impact:
1. **Claim and verify your Google Business Profile** at [business.google.com](https://business.google.com). If you already have one, log in and check that every field is accurate and complete. This alone has more impact than most things you can pay for.
2. **Choose the right primary category.** Search for your type of business on Google and look at what category the top three results are using. Pick the most specific one that fits. Don't use a broad category when a specific one exists.
3. **Upload 15-20 real photos.** Storefront, team, products, completed work. Skip the stock photos. Businesses with more photos see measurably higher engagement.
4. **Set up a review request process.** Create a direct link to your Google review page and send it to every customer after you finish a job. A simple text message works. Aim for 4-8 new reviews per month.
5. **List your business on Yellow Pages Australia and True Local.** These are the two best-known Australian directories. Make sure your name, address, and phone number match your GBP exactly.
6. **Add LocalBusiness schema markup** to your website using the JSON-LD format shown above. Hand the example to your developer. It takes less than an hour to implement.
7. **Google yourself every week.** Search for your business name plus your suburb. Search for your main service plus your suburb. Note where you appear, who's above you, and whether your information is correct. You can't improve what you don't measure.
---
## Tools & Resources
Everything mentioned above, plus a few worth bookmarking. All free unless labelled.
### Free tools
- **[Google Business Profile manager](https://www.google.com/business/)** — claim, manage, and update your business listing. Where most of the work happens
- **[Google Search Console](https://search.google.com/search-console)** — see which searches are showing your website (and which aren't). Free with site verification
- **[Google Rich Results Test](https://search.google.com/test/rich-results)** — paste a URL and confirm Google can read your structured data
- **[Schema Markup Validator](https://validator.schema.org/)** — official Schema.org validator for your JSON-LD before publishing
- **[Schema.org LocalBusiness type browser](https://schema.org/LocalBusiness)** — full list of business sub-types (Plumber, Restaurant, Florist, etc.) so you can pick the most specific `@type` for your schema
- **[Google Maps coordinate lookup](https://www.google.com/maps)** — right-click your location to get latitude and longitude for your schema
- **[BrightLocal Local Search Audit](https://www.brightlocal.com/)** — Map Pack rank tracking across a grid of nearby locations \[paid tool, free trial\]
- **[Whitespark Local Citation Finder](https://whitespark.ca/local-citation-finder)** — finds industry-specific citation opportunities you may have missed \[paid tool, free demo\]
### Sample prompts
- **Test what AI says about your business** — paste this into ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity:
*"What does [your business name] in [your suburb] do, and would you recommend them?"*
Compare across all three. Vague or inconsistent answers mean your GBP and reviews aren't doing the work.
- **Test your service-area visibility** — paste into ChatGPT or Claude:
*"I'm in [your suburb, Melbourne] looking for [your service]. Who would you suggest?"*
If you're not in the answer (or worse, if a competitor is), there's GBP and citation work to do.
- **Audit your GBP description** — paste your current GBP business description into ChatGPT and ask:
*"Read this as a 55-year-old Melbourne local searching for [your service]. Would you call this business? What's missing or unclear?"*
Most descriptions read like ad copy. Plain English wins.
### Checklists
- **NAP parity audit** — search your phone number (in quotes) on Google. Every result with your business listed should show your current name, address, and phone in the same format. Mismatches hurt local rankings.
- **GBP completeness check** — log in to your GBP and confirm every field is populated: hours (including holidays), categories (one primary, up to nine secondary), photos (15+), services, attributes, products, and at least one Post in the last 30 days.
- **15-minute weekly self-search** — see "What can you do this week?" above. The seventh item is the one most people skip and the one that compounds fastest.
### Further reading
- [What is GEO? AI search guide for SMBs](https://nathanschram.com/blog/what-is-geo) — how to surface in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overview citations. Pairs directly with the AI prompts above
- [Core Web Vitals in 2026: what small businesses need to know](https://nathanschram.com/blog/core-web-vitals-small-business-2026) — page-speed thresholds Google ranks on. Slow sites lose Map Pack visibility
- [How to tell if your Google Ads are actually working](https://nathanschram.com/blog/google-ads-working) — paid-search complement to local SEO
- [Nathan Schram — SEO services](https://nathanschram.com/services/seo/) — if you'd rather have someone do this for you
---
*[Nathan Schram](https://nathanschram.com/about/) is a digital consultant based in Melbourne. He helps small businesses with [local SEO](https://nathanschram.com/services/seo/), web design, and Google Ads - built for results, not reports. For a deeper look at website performance, see [Core Web Vitals in 2026: what small businesses need to know](https://nathanschram.com/blog/core-web-vitals-small-business-2026).*
# How to make sure ChatGPT and AI Overviews mention you
Source: https://nathanschram.com/blog/what-is-geo/
Published: 2026-04-23
Author: Nathan Schram
## Table of contents
- [What is GEO?](#what-is-geo)
- [Why does GEO matter in 2026? Four numbers you need to hear](#why-does-geo-matter-in-2026-four-numbers-you-need-to-hear)
- [The Australian context: we're further along than you think](#the-australian-context-were-further-along-than-you-think)
- [GEO vs SEO: what actually changed?](#geo-vs-seo-what-actually-changed)
- [What does the research say about GEO?](#what-does-the-research-say-about-geo)
- [What does Google now say about AI search? (May 2026)](#what-does-google-now-say-about-ai-search-may-2026)
- [What actually moves the needle in GEO?](#what-actually-moves-the-needle-in-geo)
- [The schema you should actually add, with code](#the-schema-you-should-actually-add-with-code)
- [The 2-hour Melbourne SMB minimum viable GEO plan](#the-2-hour-melbourne-smb-minimum-viable-geo-plan)
- [What won't save you?](#what-wont-save-you)
- [FAQ](#faq)
---
Someone in Hawthorn, Melbourne asks ChatGPT "best accountant near me for a small trades business." ChatGPT doesn't hand them ten blue links. It hands them a paragraph answer with three named firms and links to the sources it pulled from.
If your accounting practice isn't one of the three, you don't exist in that conversation. Not later on page two, not "fighting for the click." You're just not there.
That's the thing most small business owners I talk to haven't quite clocked yet. It's not that AI search is coming. It's already here, your competitors are showing up in it, and the standard SEO playbook alone won't get you into the answer. That's what [GEO](/services/) is about.
This is the long version of the conversation I have with every new client who asks me whether they need to "do something about AI." Yes. But probably not as much as the people selling AI SEO packages want you to think. Here's the honest version.
---
## What is GEO?
**Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring your website content so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini can find it, understand it, and cite it in their answers.** The term comes from a 2023 Princeton paper by Aggarwal, Murahari and colleagues that introduced GEO as a discipline and measured which techniques actually improve citation rates in generative search ([arXiv:2311.09735](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735), published in [KDD 2024](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637528.3671900)).
The short version: AI engines don't rank your site like Google does. They read across hundreds of sources, pick the ones that give them a clean, credible, specific answer, and then paraphrase or quote those sources in their response. Getting cited is the new getting ranked. GEO is how you make that more likely.
It isn't a replacement for [SEO](/services/seo-and-analytics/). It's an extension of it. You still want to rank in traditional search. You just also want to be the source the AI tool pulls from when someone asks a question in natural language instead of typing keywords into a box.
## Why does GEO matter in 2026? Four numbers you need to hear
Four numbers tell the story.
**1. ChatGPT crossed 900 million weekly active users in February 2026.** That's more than double the 400 million from a year earlier ([Search Engine Land](https://searchengineland.com/chatgpt-900-million-weekly-active-users-470492), Feb 2026). OpenAI also reports 50 million paying consumer subscribers and 9 million paying business users. This isn't a niche tool anymore. It's closer to "a quarter of the internet uses ChatGPT every week."
**2. Google AI Overviews now show on 16-48% of searches, depending on the study.** Semrush's research tracked Google AI Overviews appearing on around 16% of US queries in late 2025, with informational queries hit hardest at 39.4% ([Semrush AI Overviews study](https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study/), 2025). BrightEdge's tracking of specific industries showed AIO surging from 31% of queries in Feb 2025 to 48% by Feb 2026, with education queries jumping from 18% to 83% ([Search Engine Land summary](https://searchengineland.com/google-ai-overviews-surge-pullback-data-466314), 2026). Use the range. One number alone hides the story.
**3. Click-through rates drop 47-61% when an AI Overview appears.** Pew Research found users click a traditional search result on just 8% of visits where an AI summary appears, versus 15% where none does — roughly half as often ([Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/), July 2025). Seer Interactive measured a 61% drop in organic CTR on SERPs with AIO present ([Seer](https://www.seerinteractive.com/insights/aio-impact-on-google-ctr-september-2025-update), Sept 2025). Ahrefs saw similar patterns in December 2025 ([Ahrefs](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/)). The upside: brands cited inside the AI Overview itself get 35% more organic clicks than they would without it.
Three separate studies, three different methodologies, roughly the same picture. Being on the page but not cited is worth about half the traffic it used to be.
**4. One in four consumers now start their product research with AI, not Google.** Adobe's 2026 AI and Digital Trends report found 25% of customers now cite AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT as a top research tool, with 49% open to AI for product recommendations and 44% for customer service ([Adobe, 2026](https://business.adobe.com/resources/digital-trends-consumer-report.html)). Gartner forecasts a 25% drop in search engine volume by 2026 due to AI chatbots and virtual agents ([Gartner, Feb 2024](https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-02-19-gartner-predicts-search-engine-volume-will-drop-25-percent-by-2026-due-to-ai-chatbots-and-other-virtual-agents)).
Put them together and the picture is obvious. A growing share of the people who would have clicked on your site from Google are now getting their answer from an AI tool instead. Some still click through. Many don't. The only way to be in the conversation is to be one of the sources the AI pulls from.
## The Australian context: we're further along than you think
Here's the bit that surprises my Melbourne clients. Australia isn't behind on [AI search](/services/). We're ahead.
DataReportal's [Digital 2026 Australia](https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2026-australia) report clocks Australian internet users at 26.2 million — 97.1% penetration, effectively the whole adult population online. And a [Google/Ipsos survey](https://blog.google/intl/en-au/company-news/ai-adoption-in-australia-new-survey-reveals-increased-use-belief-in-potential/) found 49% of Australians used generative AI in the past year, up from 38% in 2023, with 74% of those using it at work.
Nearly half the adult population is already asking AI tools questions they used to put into Google. A decent chunk of that is happening during the workday, which means local business searches, supplier research, service provider comparisons. Exactly the kind of searches a small business owner in Fitzroy or Coburg wants to show up for.
In my experience auditing Melbourne businesses, roughly half the sites I look at haven't claimed their Google Business Profile properly, or they claimed it years ago and never touched it again. The foundations that feed AI citations for local queries (GBP, reviews, accurate address and hours) are wide open. If you're reading this and your plumbing business or café hasn't sorted its GBP out, the [local SEO guide](/blog/local-seo-melbourne-2026/) is where I'd start. GEO sits on top of that work, not instead of it.
There's a real window here. Most Melbourne SMBs haven't done anything about GEO yet because most haven't heard of it. Competing on attention is almost always harder than competing on being early.
## GEO vs SEO: what actually changed?
A lot of articles on this subject draw a sharp line between GEO and SEO. They're closer than that. GEO is what you get when you apply a decade of structured-content best practice to a new audience.
| | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| **Goal** | Rank in search results | Get cited inside AI answers |
| **Audience** | Google's ranking algorithm | Large language models: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude |
| **Format signals** | Keywords, backlinks, technical health, Core Web Vitals | Clear definitions, direct answers, verifiable facts, structured data |
| **Output** | Blue link on page one | Named source in an AI-generated paragraph |
| **Trust signals** | Domain authority, E-E-A-T, link profile | Citability, factual specificity, schema markup, answer-first formatting |
| **Measurement** | Rankings, organic clicks, impressions | Citation appearances, referral traffic from AI tools, brand mentions in answers |
The practical overlap is larger than the table suggests. A site that's fast, structured, well-written, and factually specific tends to do well in both. A site that hides its point under paragraphs of vague marketing copy tends to do badly in both.
If you care about site speed and mobile experience (you should), the same [Core Web Vitals work](/blog/core-web-vitals-small-business-2026/) that helps SEO also helps AI crawlers parse your site. If your Google Ads spend is leaking (it probably is), the [self-audit checklist in the Google Ads guide](/blog/google-ads-working/) will tell you where. None of this is wasted when you start thinking about GEO. It's all compounding.
## What does the research say about GEO?
The foundational paper is [Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization"](https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735), from a Princeton and IIT Delhi team, published at KDD 2024. It's the first serious attempt to measure which content techniques actually improve citation rates in generative search, tested across 10,000 queries.
They found that certain techniques boosted visibility in AI responses by up to 40%. These are the nine techniques they tested, strongest performers first:
1. **Citing sources.** Adding credible references inside your content.
2. **Adding statistics.** Replacing "a lot of people" with "49% of Australians" (with a source).
3. **Using quotations.** Including direct quotes from experts or studies.
4. **Fluency optimisation.** Clear, well-structured writing.
5. **Unique wording.** Specific phrasing the AI hasn't seen a thousand times elsewhere.
6. **Technical terms.** Precise terminology where it suits the topic.
7. **Authoritative tone.** Writing like someone who actually knows the subject.
8. **Easy-to-understand language.** Simplifying dense writing so the answer is legible.
9. **Keyword stuffing.** The one old-school SEO trick they tested — and it *didn't* work. Cramming query keywords in barely moved the needle, which is the whole point: AI engines reward substance, not density.
The top three (citing sources, adding statistics, using quotations) did most of the heavy lifting, each adding roughly 30-40% visibility. None of this is a shock if you've read good writing advice for the last twenty years. The interesting bit is that a machine learned to prefer it for the same reasons humans do. Specific is better than vague. Sourced is better than asserted. Clear is better than clever.
The practical takeaway: the paper measured *content* techniques, not tooling. Answer-first formatting, schema markup, and clean HTML structure are all worth doing — I get to them below — but they're your own good practice, not something this study ranked. Get the writing right first; the rest is incremental on top of that.
## What does Google now say about AI search? (May 2026)
In May 2026, Google did something it hadn't before. It published an [official guide to optimising for AI features in Search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide). For a year the SEO world had been guessing. Now we have Google's actual position, and it's blunter than the "AI SEO" industry would like.
The headline: for Google specifically, there is no separate AI ranking system. AI Overviews and AI Mode pull from the same index and the same ranking as regular search. In Google's words, to be eligible to appear in an AI Overview, ["a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet... There are no additional technical requirements"](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features). Translation: if you've done good SEO, you've done your Google GEO. There's no secret AI checklist.
Google also spelled out what you don't need, which is the more useful half. You don't need an llms.txt file ("Google Search itself doesn't use them"). You don't need to chop your content into tiny chunks for the AI to read. You don't need to rewrite everything in some special "AI-friendly" voice. And you don't need special schema markup to show up in AI answers. Most of what gets sold as "GEO" is, for Google, unnecessary.
So where do the GEO tactics actually earn their keep? The other engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude don't follow Google's ranking, and they don't behave like each other. ChatGPT leans on consensus sources and clear answers. Perplexity weights recency hard and cites several sources per answer. Claude likes depth and well-structured content. Answer-first formatting, specific sourced statistics, freshness, clean structure: those genuinely help you get cited there, and they make the page better for humans, which is why I'd do them anyway. Just don't believe anyone who calls them a secret Google hack. Google has now said, on the record, that they aren't.
The honest version hasn't really changed. Do excellent SEO for Google, and the same fundamentals (clear answers, specific facts, fresh content) are what get you cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the rest.
## What actually moves the needle in GEO?
This is the section where I tell you what I'd actually bother with, because a lot of the AI SEO packages being sold right now are 80% fluff on top of standard fundamentals.
### What I'd prioritise
**Answer-first formatting in every section.** If someone could only read the first two sentences of each H2, they should get the answer. Everything after is supporting evidence. This matches the research and, honestly, just makes the article better.
**One-paragraph definitions of what you do.** Your homepage, your service pages, your About page. Each should open with a single sentence an AI tool can quote verbatim. "We're passionate about delivering solutions" is not quotable. "Nathan Schram is a Melbourne-based digital marketing consultant specialising in SEO, GEO, and Google Ads for small businesses" is.
**FAQ sections with direct answers.** FAQ content maps almost exactly to the kind of question people ask AI tools. A Relixir analysis of 50 domains found FAQPage schema produced the highest citation lift of any schema type at around 28% median. Yes, the firm publishing those numbers sells schema services, so take the magnitude with a grain of salt. The direction is consistent across other studies. One thing to know: Google [retired the FAQ rich result in May 2026](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage), so FAQPage markup no longer earns you the expandable Q&A box in Google's results. The value now is the AI-citation angle and the clean structure, not a Google SERP feature. Write FAQs. Add the schema where the questions are real. The cost is low.
**Fresh content with clear dates.** Every article I publish has a "last updated" date. AI tools weight recency. A 2024 article about AI search is stale by 2026.
**Specific, verifiable numbers.** "We've helped many businesses" is worthless. "I've audited Google Ads accounts for trades, healthcare, real estate, and professional services since 2013" is fact-checkable and citable.
### What I'd skip for now
**Buying an "AI SEO" package for $2,000 a month.** Most of what's in those is either standard SEO or basic schema implementation. If your site has good structure, clear writing, and current schema, you've already done 90% of the work. The rest is measurement, which barely any tool does well yet.
**Skip llms.txt.** The [llms.txt proposal](https://www.answer.ai/posts/2024-09-03-llmstxt.html) from Jeremy Howard at Answer.AI in September 2024 is a tidy idea: a text file telling AI crawlers what matters on your site. Plenty of sites added one through 2025. Then the evidence came in. In May 2026 Google stated flatly that [its Search systems don't use it](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide), and an Ahrefs analysis of 137,000 domains found [97% of llms.txt files got zero bot requests](https://searchengineland.com/googles-mueller-says-llms-txt-cant-help-llms-differentiate-sites/579304). John Mueller compared it to the discredited meta-keywords tag. I had this filed under "cheap insurance" a few months ago. It's now closer to "don't bother for most sites." If you want one for the agentic-browsing future, fine, but don't pay anyone to strategise about it.
**Chasing every new "GEO tool."** The tooling market is a mess. Most tools show you mentions in some subset of AI tools, extrapolate wildly, and sell you a dashboard. Wait a quarter. The honest ones will still be around.
## The schema you should actually add, with code
[Schema markup](/services/seo-and-analytics/) is where most small business websites miss the easiest win. Microsoft confirmed at [SMX Munich in March 2025](https://searchengineland.com/schema-markup-ai-search-no-hype-472339) that Bing's AI tools use schema in their indexing. Google was clearer in its May 2026 guide: structured data [isn't required for AI search and there's no special markup to add](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide), but it's still worth using because it helps you qualify for rich results in regular search. So add schema because it's cheap and well-supported for SEO and for engines like Bing, not because it's a magic AI-citation lever. The cost of adding it is one hour. The downside is zero.
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