Unlike most agencies, we don’t want you to gamble your hard-earned dollars on a fly-by-night approach.
We follow a systematic, multi-step process of analysis designed to help you understand your competition and current online profile.
Our full-orbed technical audit will give you all the info you need before you sign up with us.
From top to bottom, you’ll know what we’re doing to improve your local SEO campaign and why.
Here’s Anish, our CIO (chief innovation officer), detailing how our proprietary process works:
“By comparing real-world performance against our ever-evolving SEO models, our researchers are continuing to evolve our models to pattern what Google is ranking today. We do segment this analysis by niche, and even by sub-niche in some cases. We’re essentially looking out for small shifts (that go undetected to most agencies) that lead to long-term SEO results.”
If you aim to lead the local scene, you’d definitely want him and our team of experts to be on your side.
What Keeps You Up at Night?
We think we know why you’ve been pacing back and forth in your room until late at night.
As a business owner, you likely wonder why you’re not getting the ROI (return on investment) you expect from the money you’ve spent on your local SEO efforts.
You’ve been pumping more gas into your marketing engine, but your business still won’t take off. In fact, you worry it might crash and burn.
Fortunately, things don’t have to end that way.
We’ve been in the SEO industry for over 15 years and have helped transform 1,812 businesses across 355 niches into digital marketplace leaders.
We know what it takes to boost your online presence and generate a steady stream of highly focused traffic, leads, and sales.
Here’s a recent example from our work with Avlaw Aviation Consulting, an Asia-Pacific leader in aviation consultancy:
In less than two years, we’ve skyrocketed Avlaw’s organic traffic by 201% and increased its top 10 keywords from 60 to 146.
We’ve catapulted keyphrases like “airspace construction” and “helipads advisor” from obscurity straight to #1.
Avlaw was so happy with the digital lift-off the company has gotten through our SEO efforts that its managing director said:
“We have been very pleased with our decision to engage Digital Spotlight to manage and improve our SEO. [The team members are] very responsive and know their stuff. After some bad experiences with other providers in this space, we’re not going anywhere.”
Avlaw’s case is just one of the many success stories we’ve helped create. With us, you can sleep better at night knowing that your local SEO is in capable hands.
Do You Want to Climb the Google Ladder in Sydney?

The climb to the top of Google’s local SERP is more brutal than most people think. It’s a relentless battle for online visibility.
Consider this fact: with over 600,000 businesses of various types and sizes, Sydney hosts the largest local economy in Australia.
As Australia’s only global city, Sydney may offer higher market potential than other cities. But, of course, more opportunities mean more and tighter competition.
Willpower alone won’t help you ascend to the peak of the Google ladder. So, what would? A battle-tested, numbers-based local SEO approach.
That’s where we come in. Our founders graduated with top grades from Macquarie University, where they specialised in maths- and statistics-heavy fields.
They’ve developed a multi-million dollar dataset for over a decade to track even the subtlest search algorithm changes. We’ve used this in-house tool to propel our clients to great heights.
Here’s Diana Norris, the marketing and web assistant from Dural Irrigation, an Australian online irrigation megastore, thanking us for our work with them:
“We have used DS for over 15 years for all our SEO, remarketing adwords, analytics and much, much more! Their customer service is impeccable and is always quick to respond to any issue or enquiry we may have. Our business has grown at an incredible rate thanks to [this] team. We will never use anyone else, highly recommend.”
Search Engine Optimisation Service: Sydney SEO Services for Local Businesses
We offer the following SEO service packages:
- SEO Entry
- SEO Premium
- SEO Corporate
- SEO Corporate Plus
- SEO Enterprise
- Lite
These packages offer similar services with varying scopes. They differ primarily regarding audit frequency and the number of keywords to target (core keywords).
Here’s what we can do to help scale your Sydney business:
- Ensure ongoing keyword research and key terms selection based on these criteria:
- Your business and products or services
- Monthly search volume data from Google
- The degree of competition for each key term
- The customer’s buying cycle stage, as represented by each key term
- Perform a preliminary SEO technical audit of your site and recommend (when necessary) ways to reduce penalty risk factors, including:
- Thin or duplicate content
- Redirect checks
- Indexing and crawlability issues
- Low PageSpeed scores (PageSpeed Insights is a Google tool that analyses the page speed of a website on desktop and mobile devices)
- Conduct periodic technical site audits (when necessary) to identify possible ranking issues
- Evaluate on-page factors to improve target pages’ relevance
- Give a competitor site ranking report (upon request)
- Develop a strategic plan to beat competitors for their ranked keywords (upon request)
- Craft and execute an inbound one-way citation or linking tactic to boost authority and rankings for high-value terms
- Target a specific number of core keywords (keywords to target at any time simultaneously), which will rank your site for a particular number of derivative keywords on Google’s first page using our proprietary ranking technology
- Optimise an unlimited number of keywords over time with no addition to the monthly fee
- Register your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business or GMB), claim unverified listings, upload photos, and optimise to get multiple first-page rankings and crank up your Google visibility for every branch with an offline address
- Set up Google Analytics (where necessary and applicable) to provide insights into your business and website
- Set up Google Tag Manager (where necessary and applicable) to conveniently manage and update measurement codes and related code fragments (known as tags) on your website
- Register your site with GSC (Google Search Console), and create and submit a sitemap for easy crawling and indexing (for compatible sites)
- Use GSC to find and correct errors and ensure no minor penalties undermine your first-page ranking viability
- Optimise your anchor texts by re-calibrating link strength for keywords to avoid over-optimisation penalties
- Fine-tune on-page optimisation factors, including:
- Title tags (element specifying the title of a webpage)
- H-tags (heading tags to separate subsections of your content)
- Web page content
- Rank additional variants of targeted key terms for past and probable future searches
- Note: 50% of key term searches in Google are new every month.
- Solidify a ranking defence plan to keep competitors from taking your first-page dominance
- Conduct internal weekly monitoring and analysis of your Google rankings to check for Google penalties and site issues using our proprietary SEO process
- Send monthly account summary reports to help you get a bird’s eye view of account strategy and progress, including the ranking progress of core and derivative keywords
- Work closely with developers to investigate and suggest the best ways to optimise on-site factors
- Offer specific advice regarding SEO requirements for a new site if you want to re-develop or re-design your site during an SEO campaign
What Should You Expect From an SEO Agency?
There’s more than one way to judge an agency’s overall worth. But if you ask us to single out one thing you should expect from an agency, we’ll say, “Results.”
Many agencies brag about generic positive qualities they claim they have as if those traits mean something to business owners.
But they only repeat clichéd adjectives, like “innovative”, “strategic”, and “revolutionary”, which say absolutely nothing about how they can add value to local businesses.
Likewise, we can say we’re a “results-driven” agency without end. However, that would be a lie if we can’t produce data and case studies to prove our claim.
That’s why we work the other way around. We don’t start with fancy words and hope to match them with passable outcomes.
Instead of giving sweet-sounding guarantees, we deliver real-world results and let the numbers speak for themselves.
Here’s one recent example from our work with Secure Parking, one of the world’s largest parking operators servicing Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. Through our tailored SEO Corporate services, we’ve achieved the following:
- Increased targeted traffic by 115%
- Improved or maintained rankings for over 290+ keywords (included in Google’s Top 10 as of September 2023)
We’ve got many other success stories from our work in different industries. Contact us to learn more examples of how we’ve won in the toughest SEO niches.
Local SEO in Sydney With Digital Spotlight
A quick Google search will show you hundreds of local agencies to choose from. You’ve probably already worked with some of them in an effort to revamp your local SEO efforts.
The problem is that you aren’t happy with the results they deliver — or if they even do.
You don’t have to settle for less than what your business deserves. Here are five reasons why switching to us is a smarter move for you:
1. Full commitment to your objectives: We’re more interested in understanding our client’s unique cases than talking about ourselves.
That’s why when you come to us, you’ll talk with people who ask detailed questions about your current situation and problem.
We want to know your specific goals. This way, we can give you an idea of what results could add value to your business.
Before pitching anything, we seek to understand what you’re trying to achieve.
2. Clients stick with us: Some of our clients have been with us for more than 5 and 10 years.
Many of them were just like you — searching for better options. They stay with us once they’ve experienced first-hand what we can do for their business.
3. Confidence in our methods: We don’t lock clients into long-term contracts. We’re confident we can deliver impactful returns and stand by our work. Results, or we’re out.
4. Industry trailblazers: Business publications, like Anthill and Financial Review, have featured our agency multiple times. Start-ups and multi-billion dollar organisations seek our advice regarding search patterns.
Why? We don’t just keep pace with trends. We help move the industry forward.
5. An agency like no other: Our firm’s founding directors aren’t just accomplished business people. They’re also high-calibre mathematicians.
They’re the kind of maths pros who use the same advanced statistical analysis that Google uses.
That’s why our SEO specialists don’t set up campaigns based on gut feeling. We follow the numbers where they lead.
Customised Local SEO Services and Packages in Sydney: How Our Local SEO Services and Packages Can Help You
You deserve to know whether an agency knows what it is talking about before it takes your hard-earned money.
Does it have your best interest at heart? Can its consultants give you quality input on your current strategy? Or does it only provide generic advice?
Before we take on a client, we assess whether we can improve your SEO and provide you with better results than what you get from your current agency.
If we think we can, we create a customised, actionable strategy that suits your unique situation, budget, and goals.
One of the primary questions our technical specialists ask when handling a client’s campaign is, “Is the solution within the package scope of the client?”
Each package has a different scope of service. The primary difference between them lies in the number of core keywords (keywords to target simultaneously at any time):
SEO Package |
General and City-based |
Suburb-based and Model-specific |
Initial |
Month 2 onwards |
Initial |
Month 2 onwards |
SEO Entry |
3 |
5 |
5 |
7 |
SEO Premium |
6 |
10 |
8 |
14 |
SEO Corporate |
9 |
15 |
12 |
20 |
SEO Corporate Plus |
12 |
20 |
15 |
25 |
SEO Lite |
N/A |
3 |
N/A |
6 |
We also offer SEO Enterprise, a large-scale, strategic SEO approach for results-focused clients who want to grow their investment and are willing to spend based on performance.
Large websites use SEO Enterprise because they want a bespoke, corporate-wide marketing strategy that links SEO, content marketing, and social media.
SEO Growth in Sydney
Sydney aims to be a leading hub in smart digital transformation. If you want to dominate the local digital scene, your best bet is to get a head start.
The principle of growth is a primary driving force behind many successful SEO efforts.
Strategies that stick to a methodical process, where every step, even small ones, compound into significant results, are more likely to outperform the competition.
In short, you should be willing to play the long game.
How Can We Help Your Business Excel in Sydney Using SEO?
Here are some of the primary benefits to expect from our local SEO services:
- Higher visibility on major search engines through first-page rankings for your highly searched keywords in the medium- to long-term
- Brand dominance in the consumer market by securing the top rankings in search engines
- Strong brand perception as a market leader
- Increased targeted traffic and potential customer visits to your website
- Improved leads and sales
- Feedback on your website’s conversion quality and performance
- Improved efficiency with less cost of lead generation
- Positive online reputation
You can reap all these rewards without any binding long-term contract — just a hassle-free month-to-month commitment.
More Digital Spotlight SEO Campaigns in Sydney
Here are more examples of Sydney-based businesses we helped scale using our maths-based SEO campaign strategy:
- PropertyMe: The client is a property management service provider. We’ve worked with them for over five years. As of November 2023, we’ve gotten them these results:
- 406% increase in domain rating
- 882% increase in targeted traffic
- 45% more leads
- 471% increase in the number of targeted keywords ranked in Google’s Top Three
- Bird Control Australia: This company offers innovative bird and common pest solutions. We helped them get these returns:
- 337.39% increase in traffic
- 411.94% improvement in leads
- 411.61% increase in the number of targeted keywords ranked in Google’s Top 10
Here’s what Joe Bavaro, Director of Bird Control Australia, has to say about partnering with us:
“I have worked with [Digital Spotlight] for several years now and cannot speak more highly of them. Like most, I have experienced several other companies over time, but am sticking with these guys. Their response time is super fast, even if it is the smallest of questions. I used to micro-manage my accounts, but now I feel very confident in stepping back and letting [the] team do what is best. I honestly could not ask for more.”
Local SEO You Can Trust
Trust is an overused buzzword in the marketing world. For us, it isn’t just a term to weave in a sales pitch.
Trust underpins every interaction and decision our agency makes.
We’ve been an industry leader for over a decade, helping scale thousands of local businesses in major cities like Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane, and Melbourne.
Our track record speaks for itself:
- 95.67% client retention rate
- 2,103+ client campaigns
- 63.4% client average monthly spend
How do we accomplish these feats? We value what our clients value, regardless if they’re a big, multi-national corporation or a small, family-owned shop.
This principle drives us to help the business world’s underdogs topple their industry’s heavyweights.
Thus, we don’t pitch. We listen, learn, advise (when appropriate), and demonstrate how our unique, research-driven, and results-focused local SEO approach can give you stunning results you won’t get elsewhere.
When you contact us, you won’t be talking to slick salespeople. We’ll tell you things as they are, not as we think you’d like to hear.
For instance, we’d love to take every business as a client. But if we think local SEO isn’t for you (and it isn’t for everyone), we’d rather say no than have you spend a cent on a service you don’t need.
Many of our clients value our upfront communication style. Here’s what Philip K. Bonser of Goulburn Offroad Carts, a local distributor of off-road vehicles, says about us:
“In your industry, where many take your money and do very little for it, you are a breath of fresh air for small businesses like mine.”
Local SEO Services That Convert: Helping Businesses in Sydney Thrive
Conversion rate is one of the most important SEO metrics. An effective SEO campaign aims to improve this factor.
Conversion is a clearly defined action that website visitors take, like filling out forms, calling, making a purchase, and signing up for a newsletter.
A sleek and appealing web design may help with branding, but SEO isn’t a matter of aesthetics.
You don’t use SEO to entertain site visitors. You use it to expand your reach and target potential customers in Sydney.
Our local SEO aims to engage searchers ready to take action, like those deep in the buying cycle.
Revenue Over Rankings
Discussions about how SEO works and what SEO agencies can do are a total waste of time if you don’t get what your business needs: more sales.
Increased organic traffic, higher online authority, and more established brand awareness — we can help you reach these targets.
But ultimately, we care about your bottom line. Instead of overwhelming you with showy metrics, we focus on getting high-quality, sales-generating leads.
Once, an eCommerce fashion retailer came to us for help. Its organic traffic began to drop off despite growth in other marketing areas.
In less than nine months, the company claimed the #1 spot for a highly profitable keyword, generating an extra $800,000 in sales.
Be Where Your Customers Are Looking
Competent SEO specialists can focus your SEO campaign on targeting potential customers.
Our SEO strategy targets people entering the market (searchers who could be interested in your product) and those advanced in the buying stage (searchers who are ready to buy).
We aim to put your website before potential customers whenever they search for a product or service you offer.
Tap Into the Local Search Mobile Phenomenon
Fun fact: There were more mobile phone subscriptions (8.58 billion in 2022) than people on the planet (7.95 billion global population in 2022).
In Australia alone, there may be 32.71 million active mobile phone users. This figure is equivalent to 124.3% of the country’s population.
No wonder global web traffic from mobile devices has skyrocketed in recent years. Studies also show that mobile visitors tend to revisit mobile-friendly sites.
Google has an algorithm that checks whether a page is mobile-friendly or not. Just because a webpage appears mobile-friendly on a mobile device doesn’t necessarily mean it meets Google’s mobile-friendly standards.
To capitalise on this mobile phenomenon, we ensure your website is friendly to mobile visitors and meets Google mobile usability standards.
Do You Want to Know What Our SEO Secret Is?
We’re maths-inclined business people. We’re neither SEO gurus nor wizards (nor do we want to be). So, if you expect us to drop some esoteric knowledge regarding how SEO and search engines work, you’ll only be disappointed.
The “secret” behind our agency’s success isn’t exactly a secret only the chosen few can discern.
It is more of a return to a foundational business principle that most business owners today forget. The forgotten principle? Put the client first.
One of our most important rules is to think of the client’s POV (point of view) first and ours second.
After carefully assessing your case, we can give solutions and recommendations and craft strategies that generate meaningful business outcomes.
What Exactly Is Search Engine Optimisation?
Simply put, SEO aims to rank your website higher organically (non-paid) in SERPs.
You can quiz our specialists about SEO terms, even technical-sounding ones, like header tags, canonical pages, 404s, and meta descriptions. And they’d likely get a perfect score.
But we don’t lure potential clients with trivial knowledge and tech speak. We want them to understand our process before they move forward with us.
That said, what goes into an effective SEO campaign is a whole other story that only battle-tested SEO veterans can tell.
Most amateur agencies focus on hacks and shortcuts and forget the timeless value of “keeping at it” for the long haul.
Unlike them, we don’t shy away from doing the hard work of research and experimentation. Our SEO strategies are always based on digital patterns, Google guidelines, and the best industry practices.
How Exactly Does SEO Work?
SEO is at the mercy of ever-updating search systems and algorithms. It is a simple but often forgotten concept.
A gap needs to be filled between marketers and Google’s engineers. They seem to speak different languages.
One side is fluent in complex maths, while the other speaks plain English— the everyday consumer language.
We aim to close this language gap. We can translate Google’s computational logic into actionable business strategies.
“How Do You Optimise My Website for Local SEO?”
Here’s how our local SEO process works:
- Our full-time researcher does double duty as he leads our team’s expedition into Google’s search system.
First, he excavates the top local SERPs to uncover a broad range of topics and their corresponding keyword sets. Afterwards, he narrows down his search to client-specific topics and keywords.
Then, he digs through each website to find patterns across content, topics, keywords, online authority, and other important digital terrains.
He does all these tasks (and repeats the entire process) to unveil Google’s current preferences, both broadly and within specific topics and keyword sets.
- Second, our researcher tracks internal campaign data and runs them against our predictive model.
This dataset — honed over a decade of experience working for 1,800+ clients — acts like a digital Rosetta Stone, helping us decipher Google’s algorithmic shifts.
- Whenever a new pattern emerges, our team collaborates to develop a hypothesis and conduct experiments on our internal sites to isolate a significant algorithm update.
Through relentless testing and optimisation, we gain the necessary insights to drive tangible results for our clients.
This down-to-the-last-detail approach and the unparalleled results it generates make our clients confident in working with us.
Here’s Iris Lever’s appreciation for the way our SEO efforts added value to their company:
“We have been working with the team at Digital Spotlight for over five years now. Their expertise, timeliness, and attention to detail have been instrumental to the success of our digital marketing. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the Digital Spotlight team over the years and I would highly recommend their digital services.”
What Is Local SEO?
This SEO strategy amplifies your local search visibility.
A well-made local SEO tactic can do wonders for your bottom line if you operate a brick-and-mortar shop or serve a particular geographic area.
Say you search Google using keywords related to what you offer and add a location-based modifier to your query.
In that case, the search giant will show you a list of location-specific results, known as the local pack or Google map pack. This SERP feature usually displays the top three local search results above any ads.
As a business owner, you know what this feature means: whoever gets the coveted top three slots gets greater online visibility and, ultimately, more leads and sales.
Local search results rankings depend primarily on these three factors:
- Relevance: How well your Google Business Profile matches a user’s query
- Prominence: How popular your business is in the offline world
- Distance: How far your location is from the location term used by the searcher
Did You Know That Over 90% of All Searches on the Internet Begin With Google?
Google remains the number one search engine worldwide, processing billions of searches daily.
As of January 2024, the search platform has a global search engine market share of 91.47%.
If you want to know where most potential customers are, they’re likely on Google.
Is Almost Everyone Using Local Search? Report Says Around 40% (Almost Half) of Searches on Google Feature Local Intent
A considerable volume of Google searches adds location-specific phrases in their queries (for example, “hair salons in Sydney”). How huge, you ask? Approximately 40% use local keywords.
Despite the rise of eCommerce, more and more people now intend to buy from, eat at, or visit local establishments.
Local SEO Conversion Rates Are Ridiculous
Some suggest that local searches convert at 28%. In other words, more than one in four customers who use localised search intent could make a purchase.
General keywords generate a fair traffic volume, but the more general the keyword is, the lower the conversion rates to leads and sales.
Searches That Include “Near Me” Have Exploded
“Near me” searches are crucial for businesses. People who use the phrase in their queries are likely potential customers.
A 2021 report says that “near me” searches surged 900%, and local search traffic spiked 400% in preceding years. Here’s what these figures could mean for your local business:
Suppose a newlywed couple asks Google where to buy an induction cookware set near them. In that case, Google will show them kitchen supply stores based on location.
The couple likely searched “induction pots and pans near me” because they are eager to set up their modern kitchen. They’re ready to buy or very interested in buying.
So, through the local pack, Google shows them the top nearby suggestions.
Say you run a physical shop, but your business site doesn’t appear on Google’s top three local listings. You’re missing a significant market opportunity.
Whether you offer a superior product or service in your local area doesn’t carry much weight. Online consumers with high buying intent won’t see your shop first or, worse, know it even exists.
Your Competitors Don’t Understand the Power of Local SEO
Although local SEO can help scale your business in various ways, here are the crucial advantages:
- Organic halo: When Google sees your brand as the ideal match to a local query, searchers also feel you’re the top brand.
- Lock out your competition: Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? The page two of Google!
But seriously, if you rank high in organic search results, your target market won’t even know your nearby competitors exist.
- Win today’s toughest niches: We only work with businesses we know we can help scale. We have real-world examples of how our local SEO campaigns are dominating the most challenging niches right now.
Local SEO Builds Businesses
Consider these facts highlighting local SEO’s importance for local businesses:
- Google Ads only gets 30% of searchers. 70% skip the ads to browse an organic search result.
- Around 40% of online searches use localised keywords. 76% of these searches indicate local buying intent.
These figures show that local searches represent a significant market local businesses should not neglect.
What Are the Key Factors That Can Help With Local SEO?
Here are some of the crucial factors we optimise when doing local SEO:
- NAP: This acronym stands for name, address, and phone number.
- Google Business Profile (GBP): GBP is a free, Google-enabled business listing.
- Citations and backlinks: These factors refer to mentions or links from other websites
- On-page factors: These on-site elements, including HTML (hypertext markup language) tags and web content, should follow Google’s basic guidelines and match Google’s recommendations for improving local search rankings.
How Can Local SEO Improve Sales and Visibility?
Done right, local SEO can target particular regions and demographics.
By ranking high in the SERP, you could reach potential customers when they’re ready to buy or book an appointment.
Unlike most agencies, we follow a multi-layered, methodical approach to getting qualified leads (which helps boost revenue).
This logical and systematic style is why we consistently beat the competition. In fact, we rake in over 200M in tracked yearly revenue in SEO alone.
Local SEO vs. Normal SEO – What’s the Difference?
Local SEO is a type of SEO strategy. SEO seeks to improve these organic ranking factors:
- Content quality and relevance
- Backlink quantity and quality
- On-page or technical SEO
Local SEO optimises these additional factors:
- NAP (your business’ name, address, and phone number)
- Local citations and backlinks
- Google Business Profile listing