Background of Sydney

Sydney is the capital of New South Wales and Australia’s most popular city, following Melbourne. This is an ongoing debate. The city is home to 5.45 million residents as of June 2023. Sydney consists of 658 suburbs across 33 local government areas, and its residents are known as “Sydneysiders.” The city is very multicultural, which is evident across its 33 local government areas and suburbs.

The area of Sydney is comprised of the following regions:

• Sydney CBD (231,086 population)
• Eastern Suburbs (500,000 population)
• Western Suburbs (over 2 million population)
• Northern Suburbs (around 600,000 population)
• Southern Suburbs (around 400,000 population)
• Greater Sydney (around 5.45 million population)

Each region is comprised of various local councils and suburbs, each with its own unique persona, character, and personality. Sydney is a key city to target for SEO due to its large population and high search volumes for various keywords. The city's numerous suburbs offer ample opportunities for local SEO variations, making it an ideal city for businesses to optimize their search for SEO in Sydney.

If you're a business or entity in Sydney, depending on your industry and niche, it can be extremely challenging to rank well in the top 8-10 positions of Google search results. It's important to approach it strategically rather than leaving it to luck. Let's take an example of one of mankind's most loved drinks, coffee. A search for "coffee near me" has 4,110,100,000 results. Imagine you're a small local café in Sydney trying to grab some search volume share. How would you even go about this?

Lastly, the SEO agency scene in Sydney is diverse. We’ll go through it in more detail below, but just a quick introduction: Sydney has a large selection of SEO agencies, all varying in terms of price points and the size of the agency.

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Best practice SEO in Sydney

Like any other state or city in Australia, the fundamentals of SEO remain the same. It all starts with keyword research. The first step in the process is figuring out how people are searching. We recommend investing in a good keyword research tool like Semrush, which allows you to determine search volume in Australia. While it won't allow you to break down data sets based on a suburb, city, or state level, you can plug in the actual keyword along with the area. For example, "black coffee Melbourne" will give you a pretty good indicator of the search volume in the city.

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Once you’ve done your due diligence and identified the keywords, you can use this as the framework to guide your SEO strategies moving forward. Whether you're just a start-up or already have a website, this applies to both circumstances. It's important to create an SEO keyword library that maps out the pages on your website and allocates the keywords you're aiming to rank for. Here is an example:

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Once you’ve created this framework, if you're already ranking for these keywords, the next step is to identify where your domain is being placed. This will help you determine where to focus your energy to improve those keyword positions.

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With this framework to kickstart the real work, you should perform an audit to check what SEO best practices are missing from your website. I won’t overcomplicate things, as it can get extremely technical, but here's a list of things to look out for:

• Check that your meta title and meta description tags are keyword-rich but not spammy. You need to find a good balance that incorporates keywords while conveying your page well.
• Use a tool like Screaming Frog to scan your website to ensure there aren't pages being blocked from Google search.
• Ensure your domain is connected to Google Search Console. It's free, so you should take full advantage of it. After it's connected, give it a day or two to start populating data from your site, which will provide you with some insightful information.
• Based on your mapped keyword roadmap, check your pages to see if those keywords are being used on the page.
• Best practices for heading types (H1): You should aim to have your main keywords here, as it helps tell Google what this particular page is about. Reserve H2 for longer-tail keywords.
• Quality check: This is not so obvious, but observe your pages and ask yourself if the content on the page is too thin. Is there a way to add more value to the pages that a user might want to see or read? Trust us when we say Google knows if a page is providing value or not.
• Use Screaming Frog to identify how internal links/hyperlinks are being used on your website. Are you aiding the user journey by incorporating keyword-rich hyperlinks throughout your website?
• Speed check: Use some website speed checkers online to see how fast your page loads in Sydney. The tool you’re using will likely inform you if your site is underperforming.
• Ensure your website is optimised for mobile as well. Don’t overlook the importance of having functional desktop and mobile versions of your website.
• Analyse the referring domains of your competitors in the top 10 positions for your given keyword. See where the gap is between your page and the competitor. If they have five high-quality backlinks, you need seven high-quality backlinks.
• Lastly, focus on Local SEO. If you're targeting Sydney, incorporate local keywords like [suburb + service] throughout your copy, meta title, and meta descriptions.
• Create content through a hub and spoke strategy. For example, create ultimate guides related to your niche + Sydney as the ultimate guide that comprehensively covers the subject matter. Then, create spoke articles that are more single-question types. The aim is to create an interconnected web of articles that help grow each other for SEO.

These tips provide actionable steps you can implement immediately, helping you start your SEO journey in Sydney.

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Local SEO & Industry Specific Keyword Variations

Sydney, being one of the largest cities in Australia, has no lack of keyword search volume. With the highest number of suburbs, implementing an effective local SEO strategy is critical. If you're not, you're pretty much throwing money down the drain. So another angle to approach SEO in sydney is targeting local SEO keywords and incorporate them with different industries, business types, verticals and use a tool like SEMRUSH Magic keyword tool to identify if these variations have search volume here are some examples:

• Digital marketing for plumbers in Sydney (20 searches)
• Auto Parts Marketing in Sydney (20 searches)
• Manufacturing Marketing Agency in Sydney (20 searches)
• Professional Services Marketing in Sydney (30 searches)
• Oil and Gas Marketing in Sydney (20 searches)
• Carpenter marketing in Sydney (20 searches)

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Local SEO Content in Sydney

To start, create local content for your business. For example, if you run a chiropractic clinic in Sydney located in Castle Hill, a suburb in Sydney's western region, you should incorporate the keywords “Chiropractor in Castle Hill” throughout the page where you’d like to rank for this keyword. Use it a few times throughout the copy, naturally and without spamming, and include it in your title tag and meta descriptions. You might also write an article about the top chiropractors in Castle Hill. There’s no harm in positioning yourself as the best, and you can also mention a couple of your competitors. You might be thinking, "Why would I do that?" Take my word for it, strategies like this work and will drastically improve your local SEO. The key is to introduce the keywords like “Chiropractor in Castle Hill” and link them to the page you want that keyword to rank for. The gist is that, assuming the content you’re writing for the blog is valuable and well-written, over time, Google crawl bots recognize this and generate page authority, which is then passed on to the internal links within that article. Are you now starting to see the bigger picture?

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NAP & Local Directories

Ensure that your website has consistent NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) information throughout your site. If your address is Sydney but your copy elsewhere mentions New York multiple times, Google can clearly see there’s a discrepancy. So, ensure your website is NAP consistent. The same applies to local directories. Remember the Yellow Pages days when you'd get a brick-shaped book with NAP information of various businesses? Those days are over, and everything is online now, including the Yellow Pages. Here are a few Australian business directory sites:

• TrueLocal.com.au
• WordOfMouth.com.au
• AustralianPlanet.com
• LocalBusinessGuide.com.au
• Locanto.com.au
• Smea.org.au
• Aussie-Hours.com (Cylex)
• LocalSearch.com.au
• au.ShowMeLocal.com
• Yelp.com.au
• Womo.com.au
• au.enrollbusiness.com
• BusinessListings.net.au
• AtoZPages.com.au

Note that some of the above are free, and some are paid. If you're lucky, the listing will hold, but you might not get the clicks or calls from the profiles. Consistency is key, so ensure that NAP information is consistent with your domain. This will supercharge your local SEO and add additional credibility and trust to rank for those local SEO keywords.

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Sydney Local SEO by Councils

When optimising your SEO in Sydney, consider the various councils and suburb clusters. Each local council region has an abundance of suburbs within it. Here is a list of all the local councils in Sydney. Use this as a guide to help you find the relevant suburbs in those areas and focus on attracting additional visitors through local SEO.

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Mix and match [industry || niche && location] into different variations to create phrases. This creates a powerful local SEO strategy. Once you have the keyword variations, make sure they are being used on your website. Dedicate or create pages for them make sure that these keywords are being used in the copy, as alt text for images, title tags and meta descriptions and lastly make sure on your other pages your internal linking back to this main page by hyperlink the exact or phrase keyword match, and you'll really see the needle move. Here are some examples of common industries and niches:

• Digital marketing agency castle hill (20 searches)
• Digital marketing agency North Sydney (20 searches)
• Digital marketing Bondi Junction (20 searches)
• Digital marketing consultant Maroubra  (10 searches)
• Digital marketing Parramatta (20 searches)

By targeting these specific combinations, you can create a more focused and effective local SEO strategy that will help your business stand out in the crowded Sydney market.

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Resources to help your Sydney SEO Journey

If you're just beginning your SEO journey here are some additional SEO material to help you get a better understanding of SEO and its various concepts and definitions.

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The SEO agency and freelance scene in Sydney

There’s a reason Sydney is one of the most expensive cities in the world: the cost of living here is incredibly high. This is also reflected in the prices for different digital marketing agencies in the Sydney market. Some notable ones include:

• Sydney Digital Marketing
• Sparro
• Click Click Media
• Red Search
• Online Marketing Gurus

Expect to pay a significant sum for their services. Will you get an ROI? Honestly, not necessarily. You can expect to pay around $1,500 for a monthly management fee, plus an upfront setup fee that can set you back $1,000 or more. You end up being just another number in their pool of clients. Unless you're a big-shot business, they won’t give you the time and care really required to help you see real results.

Additionally, you’ve probably seen all the flashy logos that these big agencies have, and yes, it's amazing proof points. But how do you justify the contribution of having an IKEA logo when a company of that magnitude already had the clientele, brand equity, and presence to claim the results? It's almost like these agencies have been piggybacked to success. In our opinion, putting the logo of small businesses with no existing market credit, where you can't piggyback, is where you truly see the value. One of the biggest needle movers is brand trust. When there is already established brand trust, converting people becomes a lot easier, no matter the channel. Even SEO becomes easier, as do other digital marketing channels like Instagram marketing, YouTube marketing, Facebook marketing, and Google ads.

The Batman of SEO Agencies

Looking outside of Sydney may yield better results than the prestigious agencies within the city. There are other states and cities across Australia where you can find SEO services that will get you the results you’re seeking at a significant discount. Flashy offices and websites, which many larger digital marketing agencies have, do not necessarily reflect in your results. Frankly, these costs are absorbed and factored into your overall quote. While it might not be specified directly, it’s definitely included. The bottom line is that it makes it harder for these agencies to charge less since their operating costs are so high, and these costs have to be paid for somehow. So, when looking for an SEO expert in Sydney, shop around—you might be surprised at what you find.

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The Robin of SEO Freelancers and Consultants

In a world of batman and robin your freelancers and SEO consultants are the robin of Duo just as powerful, and can definitely get the job done.

Don’t overlook freelancers with top-tier talent globally or around Australia/Sydney. If you take the time to vet a variety of talents across popular freelancer sites such as Freelancer, Upwork, and Airtasker, you’ll be surprised by the type of talent you can find. Some specialise in SEO and have a proven track record of generating great success for businesses of all sizes, industries, and niches. The process might be more tedious, and you might go through a few before finding the right one, but it’s really worth the effort. The cost/value is incredibly good, and if you can find a local one in Sydney, even better. Definitely take the time to find a good freelancer.

As a benchmark an agency will usually charge between $100-200 an hour, here are some golden nuggets you might find when trying out these platforms:

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SEO Link Building for Sydney Businesses

You might have heard the SEO phrase "not all backlinks are equal" because it's true. For first-timers wondering what backlinks are, they are the building blocks of SEO. Like voting in an election, where each vote counts, backlinks are essentially votes for your website. The more votes (backlinks) you have, the better your chances of ranking well. However, unlike elections where all votes are equal, in the SEO world, votes from more credible websites have more value.

So, if you're a Sydney business, there’s nothing better than securing backlinks from other Sydney businesses. You might wonder how to secure hyperlinks from potential competitors. At Blurry, we have a proven method called manual outreach, where we provide a high-quality, relevant article that includes a link back to your website. It’s a win-win for both parties—the website we get a backlink from gets a quality article that might bring additional keyword ranking potential, and you get a backlink. The takeaway here is that if you can secure backlinks from other Sydney businesses, the results will speak for themselves.

Other Short-Term Solution Digital Marketing Channels

The game of SEO is, by nature, a medium to long-term strategy and ultimately depends on various factors, the main ones being the stage of your business and its domain.

If you’re after shorter-term immediate solutions like a pay-per-click model or a pay-per-thousand-views model, there is an abundance of digital marketing channels available for you to use:

• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads
• Instagram Ads
• YouTube Ads
• LinkedIn Ads

Unlike SEO, these channels drive immediate traffic. It's a pay-per-traffic/view model, so the moment you stop spending money, the traffic stops. The key is working on a short, medium, and long-term strategy to really supercharge your digital marketing ecosystem. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. In our opinion, though, SEO by far has the biggest long-term impact and return on investment, both money and time-wise.

Need a SEO Agency in Sydney?

If you're after a digital marketing agency directly in Sydney, luckily for you, we are Sydney-based. We offer extremely competitive rates. If you'd like to find out more about our process and how it all works, feel free to reach out to us.