SEO Perth

Remember when businesses would name themselves AAA or Aardvark just to appear first in the Yellow Pages? It was all about being seen before your competitors.

Today, that same visibility game happens on Google. Only now, people are searching instead of flipping through a book.

When you search on Google, you’ll often see “sponsored” ads at the top. But just below that are the organic results (the free listings) where businesses can earn clicks without paying for ads.

So how do you get your business onto that first page without shelling out for every click? That’s where Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) comes in.

SEO is the process of improving your website so it ranks higher in search results for the terms (or keywords) your ideal customers are actually using. It’s about making sure your business shows up when it matters most, right when people are looking for what you offer.

Unlike paid ads, which stop delivering the moment your budget runs out, strong organic rankings continue to work for your business around the clock. They generate traffic and leads without being tied to a daily spend, giving you a consistent stream of visibility that isn’t restricted by your ad budget.

SEO also gives you the opportunity to appear for a much broader range of search queries, including educational and research-based searches that people often make early in their buying journey. These types of searches are valuable for building trust and awareness, but they’re not usually something you’d pay to target with ads.

When your website ranks well organically, it doesn’t just reduce your reliance on paid advertising — it enhances your overall marketing strategy. It helps you capture more traffic, support your ad campaigns with added visibility, and stay front-of-mind with potential customers.

Best of all, SEO can act as a safety net during slower periods or when marketing budgets are tight. Even if your ad spend needs to be reduced, your organic presence can continue bringing in leads and helping your business stay active in the market.

In short, SEO is a long-term investment that builds resilience, reach, and real return.

Here’s what’s typically involved in SEO work:

Direct SEO work

This is SEO work that can be easily and immediately implemented to your website.

1. Research and strategy

It starts with understanding your audience and how they search. This includes keyword research, competitor analysis, and mapping out what search terms we want your website to appear for.

2. On-page optimisation

This is about making changes directly on your website. It includes improving title tags, meta descriptions, image alt tags, internal linking, content quality, and making sure each page is structured in a way that both users and search engines can understand.

3. Technical SEO

Behind the scenes, we ensure your website loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, secure (HTTPS), and free of crawl errors or broken links. A technically sound site gives Google confidence to rank it.

4. Off-page SEO and link building

Google typically likes to see additional proof of your business and key pieces of information (name, address, phone number, etc.). When your business is referred to and hyperlinked on other websites – it helps give Google the confidence that you’re a real and reputable business.

Indrect SEO work

These are ranking factors that cannot be easily implemented onto your website, and is usually a result of good branding, a high-converting website and on-going marketing campaigns.

1. Branded searches

When Google sees more local IP addresses continually searching for your business name, it’s clear that you’re a popular and reputable business that is clearly doing something right – which gives Google more confidence to present your website for relevant searches.

2. User metrics

While still a topic of debate in the SEO world, our experience suggests that Google does pay attention to certain user behaviours – particularly Click-Through Rates (CTRs) on the search results page and Bounceback Rates (when a user clicks on your site from Google, then quickly returns to the results).

These signals can give Google insight into how relevant or helpful your page appears to users, and may influence how your site performs over time in the rankings.

Good SEO work should build over time and doesn’t just vanish if you stop.

Unlike paid ads that stop the moment your budget does, the improvements made through SEO (like better content, faster site speed, and stronger on-page structure) tend to stick around.

If your rankings drop, it’s usually not because your past SEO work has worn off — it’s more likely that your competitors are actively outworking you, or that other marketing factors (like poor user experience, reduced site updates, or changes to your website) are starting to work against you.

This is where a proper analysis of your overall marketing position – and your SEO standings – is necessary to draw up a plan that gets lasting results.

Ideally, SEO should be part of your strategy from the moment your website goes live. Building with search in mind from the beginning saves time and money down the track and sets the foundation for long-term growth.

But in reality, most businesses come to us asking for SEO because they want more customers – and they want them now.

If you’re looking for immediate leads, SEO probably isn’t the right tool (with very few exceptions). It’s a long-term investment, and depending on your industry and the competitiveness of your keywords, it can take months (or even years) to reach the first page of Google.

If you’re still in the early stages of business and every marketing dollar counts, Google Ads will likely deliver faster results. Once you’re in a stronger position and ready to invest in sustainable, ongoing traffic, that’s when SEO becomes a powerful asset for the future of your business.

It might be a controversial take but yes, there is a point where you can stop actively doing SEO.

Once you’ve fully optimised your website, created all the key content, and built a healthy portfolio of safe, white-hat backlinks, the heavy lifting is done. At that stage, your focus should shift to broader marketing efforts that naturally support your SEO – like brand-building, content marketing, and campaigns that drive real engagement and growth.

Ongoing, month-to-month SEO isn’t meant to be a never-ending to-do list.

The idea that SEO is something you must keep paying for indefinitely often benefits those selling the service more than the business buying it.

At Harmonised, we believe in doing things properly from the start so your SEO holds strong, even when you stop actively working on it.