Local SEO in Australia

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the practice of optimising your online presence to appear in location-based searches. When someone searches "plumber near me", "dentist Bondi", or "best cafes in Fitzroy", Google shows a map-based results block (the "local pack") alongside regular organic results. Local SEO is what gets you into that block.

Local SEO is distinct from regular SEO in one key way: your Google Business Profile (GBP) is as important as your website - sometimes more so. For many local searches, Google shows GBP results before any organic website results.

Google Business Profile - the foundation

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) is your free business listing on Google. It controls what appears in the local pack, Knowledge Panel, and Google Maps. If you haven't claimed and optimised yours, you're leaving significant visibility on the table.

GBP optimisation checklist

These are the highest-impact GBP optimisations for AU businesses:

Reviews - the AU-specific landscape

Google reviews are the most important review source for local rankings. But Australian consumers also use several platform-specific review sources depending on industry:

How to generate more reviews (without violating Google's terms)

The most effective approach: ask at the moment of maximum satisfaction. For a trade business, that's when the job is complete and the customer says "great job." For a restaurant, when the bill comes. For a service business, after a successful project delivery. A simple "Would you mind leaving us a quick Google review?" with a direct link converts far better than an email blast a week later.

Never offer incentives for reviews - it violates Google's policies and can result in your GBP being suspended. Never use review-gating (filtering negative reviewers out of your review funnel) - also a policy violation.

AU Citation Sources

Citations are mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. Consistent citations across authoritative AU directories are a significant local ranking signal.

Priority AU citations every business should have:

Suburb landing pages - the organic local play

For businesses serving multiple locations, suburb-specific landing pages let you rank for "[service] [suburb]" queries organically - separate from the local pack.

A good suburb page needs: the suburb name in the title tag and H1, a genuine paragraph about your service in that area (not just a template with the suburb name swapped in), a Google Maps embed, local testimonials if available, and a clear CTA with your phone number.

Thin suburb pages that are obviously templated ("We offer plumbing in Bondi. We also offer plumbing in Manly...") are a Google spam risk. Each page needs meaningful unique content - even 300 words of genuinely useful, location-specific information is better than 1,000 words of duplicated template copy.