Industry-Leading SEO Tools
Aside from following a logical and systematic SEO approach, we also use advanced tools to improve campaigns. Here are some SEO tools we use with our exclusive data models:
Ahrefs
We use Ahrefs to measure your website’s rank and domain rating.
Ahrefs’ rank tracker lets you monitor up to 10,000 keyword rankings for organic searches at specific locations.
Meanwhile, Ahrefs’ website authority checker evaluates the quality and quantity of backlinks to a website.
Semrush
We use Semrush to check if Penguin updates hit your website.
Semrush also lets digital marketers do the following:
- Access local and national keywords.
- Run an in-depth technical SEO audit.
- Track SERP rankings daily.
- Analyse the domain’s backlink profile.
Google Data Studio
We use Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio), a web-based data visualisation tool, when creating our monthly reports.
Looker Studio lets users create customisable reports and dashboards using data from various sources.
Add in Some Amazing Content for Amazing SEO Results
Google’s automated ranking system lists “relevance of content” and “quality of content” as primary factors for deciding which web page to put on top of the SERPs.
In other words, Google only recognizes content that adds value to its users. You’ll get optimal SEO outcomes if your content matches Google’s preference and user behaviour.
We have a holistic, multi-step approach to content writing. Our researchers and content specialists work together and follow a detailed step-by-step process to develop original, compelling, and keyword-optimised articles.
Our Case Study for Local SEO Brisbane
We all know people who talk big with nothing to show for it. While they might be fun at parties, we don’t trust them with tasks dear to our hearts.
So, why invest your hard-earned dollars in self-proclaimed SEO rockstars who can’t show any proof of real-world success?
As a pioneer agency in Australia, we’ve been on the frontline of many SEO battles. We didn’t just help many local businesses survive. We helped them thrive.
Here’s one example from our recent work with TDL (Twomey Dispute Lawyers).
A Bit About Twomey Dispute Lawyers
TDL is a first-rate Australian law firm specialising in disputes and commercial litigations nationwide. With offices in Brisbane, Gold Coast, and Northern Rivers, they are a force to reckon with in the courtroom.
But these legal beagles had one problem: they were getting enquiries but none from qualified leads.
When our tech-savvy investigators teamed up and conducted a top-to-bottom online audit, we discovered several SEO red flags, including the following:
- Long title tags, missing meta descriptions, and a robot.txt file that doesn’t link to the sitemap
- Poor keyword strategy, e.g. targeting “free” terms and using similar keywords for campaigns focusing on the same location
- Pages with thin content that Google penalises
- Important blog pages that Google couldn’t include in its search results
How We Helped
We strategised and worked on TDL’s campaign with the precision of legal stalwarts about to engage in a make-or-break courtroom showdown.
Here’s our game plan:
- Craft Google-friendly title tags and meta descriptions.
- Update the faulty robot.txt file to fix crawling issues.
- Enrich and optimise TDL’s content to match its marketing objectives.
- Index valuable pages and set the thank you page to noindex.
The Results
So, did our strategy work? It didn’t just work. It won TDL staggering returns:
- A 16X increase in leads from their website
- A 320% improvement in targeted traffic
- Dominated over 80 keywords (from only 3) on Google AU’s first page, snagging positions #2 for dispute lawyers and #5 for construction litigation
Keyword |
Initial Rank |
Current Rank
(11 Dec 2023) |
dispute lawyer |
Not in the top 1000 |
1 |
dispute lawyers |
Not in the top 1000 |
2 |
Australia defamation |
13 |
4 |
construction litigation |
25 |
5 |
defamation Australia |
6 |
5 |
Steps to Succeeding With SEO Brisbane
Unlike other agencies, we don’t leave our SEO efforts to chance. The spectacular results we’ve gotten our clients were due to our logical, methodical, and systematic SEO approach.
Our firm commitment to this process is why we continue to surpass our competitors. In fact, we’ve helped clients pull in over $130M of extra annual revenue by improving their Google organic rankings.
Discover
While we follow a well-defined step-by-step SEO process, we can customise it to suit your unique needs and objectives.
First, we ask the right questions, such as:
- What are your most important keywords, and why are we targeting additional ones that are not as important?
- What are the primary technical, content, and linking issues affecting site rankings, and what is the ideal way to address them?
- How long will it take to improve your ranking?
- How can you support our SEO efforts?
- If our proposed strategy has a potential downside, how do we prevent it from happening?
Then, we conduct a 360-degree online audit to find the best answer to these questions. Through this digital deep dive, we’ll gather insights to develop a tailored strategy for your business.
Improve and Scale
Now that we’ve scanned the whole situation, we can begin improving your campaign.
At this point, we make the critical technical fixes and optimise your site’s existing pages, focusing on issues and objectives highlighted in our audit.
We implement our integrated content and link-building strategy to exploit organic growth opportunities.
We know exactly why your competitors are currently on top, and we’ll help you take their spot and stay there.
The strategy we develop isn’t just for winning a one-time SEO battle. We aim for long-term wins to help scale your business in the most fruitful way possible.
Test and Evolve
In SEO, launch and leave is a recipe for disaster – so we don’t do that. While we already have a clearly laid-out plan from the start, we test and monitor our performance regularly.
We’ll send you comprehensive monthly reports to show how our SEO work has improved your ranking.
How Long for SEO to Take Effect
We can give you a more accurate estimate of how long our SEO strategy can take effect once we examine your case further.
But the bottom line is that the timeline depends on your situation.
Anyone promising to get you at the top of Google in no time is either naive or lying. In reality, SEO takes time, even when you partner with a reputable industry pioneer like us.
Building or optimising your website requires ongoing work. It’s a medium- to long-term process that demands close inspection and multiple technical touch-ups.
That said, we aim to get on page one of Google for a client’s keyword within four months.
Google Rankings
Local search engine rankings hinge on three key factors: relevance, distance, and prominence. These indicators let Google know whether your business is the ideal match for a local query.
Our end game isn’t simply helping your local business get those coveted slots in the map pack or the local SERP.
We aim to put you there for highly profitable keywords as long as you’re with us.
Profit
Talks about how SEO works and what SEO agencies can do for you are a waste of time if you don’t get what you need: more customers.
Bonafide SEO specialists use on-page and off-page techniques to focus campaigns on the most profitable segments of your industry.
They can keep out unwanted traffic that generates many clicks but few conversions.
You need to connect with your local audience to establish your name in the market. With our local SEO and content marketing, we’ll direct potential clients who convert straight to your website.
Competitors
We’ll dive deep into your competitors’ top-performing keywords. Our digital crew will then ensure these keywords match your Brisbane business vibe and align with the info you share through the client questionnaire.
Strategy and Expectations
In SEO, many ignore metrics-oriented strategies in favour of less technical solutions, like clever branding and custom-designed web graphics.
But they’re ignoring high-impact optimisation opportunities.
Web environments that don’t align with Google’s guidelines are less likely to be crawled by Googlebot. Forget about winning the SEO competition. Uncrawlable web pages don’t even qualify to join.
Catchy headlines and chic website designs are pointless and useless if they don’t appear in front of the right audience.
As marketing pros, we value creativity. But we’re not your average marketers.
We actually love numbers, and as numbers-loving specialists, we enjoy researching, strategising, and implementing data-backed solutions to beat Google’s ranking game.
Check out what Jordi Twomey, the marketing manager of Twomey Dispute Lawyers, says about working with us:
“We’ve been working with the team at Digital Spotlight on our SEO strategy for a couple of years, and have just recently brought across our Google Ads. A great team to work with, with great communication and who create great results!”
Common Reasons for Poor Rankings
Think of your website as your business’ virtual home. Like a physical house, it’s a place where visitors can drop by (traffic), interact with the homeowner (you), and tour around for interesting things and experiences.
Now, Google is like an ever-updating city guide or a map service that ranks digital spaces based on their value to visitors.
The ranking system helps users explore the internet and find the most helpful and reliable info.
What happens if you have a hard-to-find, broken-down digital house? That’s right. Google won’t list you as a must-visit spot.
It might recommend your next-door neighbour (a local competitor) to potential visitors, but not you. Google will demote you or remove you from its index.
While hundreds of specific factors affect your site’s online reputation and visibility, it will almost always boil down to any of the following reasons:
Poorly Optimised On-Site Elements
On-page or on-site factors include images and HTML (hypertext markup language) tags, like title, meta, and header.
Subpar on-site features prevent Google from ranking your website’s usefulness and user relevance.
On the other hand, our full-scale on-page SEO health check scans every nook and cranny of your website to diagnose the problem accurately. We use the info we gather from this audit to recommend sound fixes.
Lack of Authority Signals
The quantity and quality of inbound links (links to your page) help Google decide whether you’re a legitimate local business.
Artificial, deceptive, and manipulative links could harm your ranking prospects. They might even invite Google’s wrath. Instead of a pat on the back, the search engine would penalise you or, worse, kick you out of the competition entirely.
However, if you partner with us, we’ll boost your online authority by helping you develop a natural link profile.
Our comprehensive SEO solutions have already helped thousands of businesses. For example, we were instrumental in improving Queensland Gate Automation’s domain rating by 76%.
Queensland Gate Automation is a leading importer and distributor of gate automation equipment in Australia. It operates in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth.
Minimal On-Page Content
Your page should have enough text content for Google to index. Otherwise, Google’s Panda algorithm will penalise it for containing thin and low-quality content.
Duplicate Content
Google also penalises duplicate content. Your page’s content should at least be 30% unique. But we go beyond the bare minimum. Our content team writes plagiarism-free articles to secure your page’s uniqueness.
Slow Page Loading Speed
Site speed (how quickly users access your website) affects your search engine ranking.
While site speed is a ranking factor, it impacts your page’s relevance less than other factors, like a heading tag, title tag, body text, and link anchor text.
Low-Quality AI-Generated Content
Here’s an SEO golden rule shady agencies would like you to ignore: You can’t fool Google.
Google’s search engine algorithm is way smarter than self-professed marketing gurus give it credit.
After the 2023 “AI boom”, many marketers felt they’d found the magic elixir to fast-track their way to SEO success: AI-generated content.
Many businesses and agencies also jumped onto the AI (artificial intelligence) bandwagon, thinking that AI content farms can give them what they’ve always wanted: cheap and easy SEO wins.
But Google isn’t lagging behind. In fact, it has always stayed ahead.
As early as 2022, Google’s top people stressed that the search engine has “many algorithms to go after” sites that publish plagiarised, AI-written content. Google’s official spam policy prohibits this sneaky workaround.
As a business owner in a forward-thinking city, you likely know how AI is turning the content marketing world upside down.
Like most business owners, you want to know if you’re getting the most out of what you paid for high-quality content.
We use six AI content detection tools, including Originality.ai, Copyleaks, Corrector App, AI Classifier, Content at Scale, and Crossplag, to ensure our content is original, insightful, and 100% human-written.
Your Website Sucks
Not to be crass, but an outdated website riddled with content and technical issues get on Google’s nerves.
Don’t worry. Our site audit can check for SEO issues, ranging from surface-level errors, like thin or duplicate content, to technical issues, like indexability and crawlability problems.
After our top-to-bottom audit, we’ll walk you through each issue and offer evidence-based resolutions.
Why Should You Choose Digital Spotlight to Manage Your SEO?
You know what you want: a steady stream of red-hot leads without breaking the bank.
The problem is that every SEO company you’ve worked with was only good at making grand promises they can’t keep.
What about us? We do things differently. We don’t guarantee – SEO has too many moving parts for anyone to give real assurance. But we’ll get the job done and more.
You work with us for only one reason: results. Whether medical, financial, or commercial — whatever industry you’re in — we deliver the outcome your business deserves.
Here’s another example from our work with Secure Parking, one of the largest parking operators worldwide, servicing Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney:
- Improved targeted traffic by 208.61%
- Secured rankings for 299 short-tail keywords (included in the Top 10), such as:
- Parking
- Goulburn parking
- Suncorp parking
- Wharf parking
- SW1 parking
Be Honest
Virtual wars happen daily. Kingdoms rise and fall on the heels of search algorithm changes.
As a pioneering force, we’ve always known that tall tales have no place in the SEO battlefield.
We’ll be upfront with you from the start. In fact, we only work with clients if we can add value to their enterprise.
That’s why we offer a pitch-free, no-pressure consultation. Contact us for an assessment to know if you qualify for a free online audit and strategic talk-through.
Genuine Partnership: SEO on Your Terms
When you contact us, you won’t chat with fast-talking salespeople. We don’t pitch anything until we’ve heard your story and discussed with you what’s realistic.
As your preferred SEO partner, we value your input. We’ll send you an SEO questionnaire and ask you for keyword suggestions before we proceed with our SEO work.
We’re committed to developing results-driven and business-focused solutions.
We Stay Relevant, Adaptable, and Updated
Google refines its ranking system non-stop. In 2022 alone, the tech giant conducted nearly 900,000 search quality tests and launched 4,725 search algorithm changes.
Want an SEO hot tip? Become faster. Work with people who experiment with codes and digital patterns from sunrise to sunset and can translate complex information into relevant and actionable SEO strategies.
No need to look elsewhere. We’re the best fit for the role. We use the same advanced statistical analysis that Google uses to turbocharge our clients’ campaigns.
SEO and Account Managers
Our agency works organically (no pun intended) as one team.
When you work with us, you don’t work with salespeople who know next to nothing about your SEO needs.
From the initial consultation to strategising to execution, our account managers are in lockstep with our technical specialists. They work together to bring you the solutions and results your business needs.
There are no smoke and mirrors or misaligned commitments — just dedicated technical expertise at every turn.
ROI-Driven Strategy: Real SEO Delivering Real Results
“ROI-driven” gets thrown around often, doesn’t it? Marketing firms like to talk about how results-focused their SEO approach is but ask them for proof, and they can hardly give any.
Some might give you one or two SEO wins they achieved five or ten years ago.
As an industry leader, we continue to achieve more and new SEO success stories. We do so not only in Brisbane but in other major cities across Australia.
Listen to what our clients say about our recent work with them:
“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. Most recently they worked closely with us on a complete website relaunch. With a project like this you would generally expect to see a short-term drop in SEO due to the sheer number of changes, however not only did we not see a drop in our rankings, but they actually increased substantially! We cannot thank Digital Spotlight enough for their support and the care they took to ensure this project was a resounding success. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with the Digital Spotlight team over the years and I would highly recommend their digital services.”
— Iris Lever, Chief Marketing Officer at PropertyMe (Sydney)
“Working with Blake and Digital Spotlight has been great, we took the time to figure out a realistic strategy which has helped our organic rankings immensely! We are now on the front page for so many head terms that were previously out of reach!”
— Sean Hersee, Managing Director at SAGE Painting (Newcastle)
Proactivity
One thing about working with a marketing agency founded by elite mathematicians: We don’t just wait around for Google to publish their core updates. We perform our own tests and research on our models to match what Google is ranking today.
We stay on top of the game because we have the skills, experience, and resources to reverse-engineer the work of Google’s engineers.