What can you help with?

Websites and Shopify stores, local SEO and your Google Business Profile, and the admin automation behind a small business. One person across the lot, so the site, the search side and the back office actually talk to each other.

How much does it cost?

A website or portfolio site starts at $1,800 AUD, and an online shop starts at $2,500 AUD. Brand identity, SEO, automation and ongoing support are quoted on the actual scope. Either way, you get a fixed number in writing before anything starts.

Do I need to be technical?

Not at all. You never need to understand how it works, only that it does. I handle everything and explain it in plain language.

How long does it take?

A landing page goes live in about a week, a multi-page site in two to three. A full bespoke project, brand and site built together, is usually a few weeks. You get a fixed timeline with the quote.

Will I own everything when it’s done?

Yes. Everything is in your name and your accounts: code, domain, hosting account, Google accounts, lead-tracking sheets. If you decide to walk away tomorrow, you take it all with you. No vendor lock-in, no hostage data.

Why no monthly subscription?

Because most people don’t need one. I charge per project, one-time, so you only pay when there’s real work to do. If you genuinely need ongoing help we can set that up, but it’s the exception, not the default.

Why not just build it myself on Squarespace?

Honestly? If you only need a one-page portfolio, go ahead. I come in when the site has to do real work: capture enquiries, integrate with the tools you already use, rank in search, and look like nobody else’s. It usually pays for itself the first time it books a job while you’re busy.

What if I already have a site?

Tell me about it. Sometimes it just needs a polish, speed, SEO, a few fixes. Sometimes new things shipped. Sometimes a rebuild. I look at it honestly and tell you what actually moves the needle, and what doesn’t.

Why is my website not showing up on Google?

In short: if your website is not showing up on Google, it is almost always one of eight things: the site is brand new and not crawled yet, it was never submitted to Google, the page titles are generic, the site accidentally tells Google to stay away, it loads too slowly on mobile, it has no inbound links, you are searching a term you simply do not rank for, or you are confusing the map pack with normal search. This piece is the ten-minute diagnostic to find which one is yours, written for a Melbourne small business owner, not an SEO agency. Fix the one that applies before paying anyone for anything.

You typed your business name into Google. You were not there. You tried again with what you actually do, and still nothing. Before you panic or pay someone, work through these in order. Most sites have one or two of them wrong, not all eight.

Is your site simply too new?

Google has to find, crawl and trust a site before it ranks it. For a brand new domain that can take a few days to a few weeks. If your site went live last week, this is the most likely answer, and the fix is patience plus the next step.

Did anyone actually tell Google the site exists?

Google usually finds sites on its own, but you can and should give it a nudge. Set up a free Google Search Console account, verify your site, and submit your sitemap (most sites have one at /sitemap.xml). This is the single most common missing step for small business sites. Without it you are waiting and hoping. With it, you are telling Google directly.

Are your page titles too generic?

Open your homepage and look at the browser tab. If it says "Home" or just your business name, Google has nothing to match a search against. The title should say what you do and where, for example "Joinery and Custom Furniture, Brunswick" rather than "Welcome". This one change moves more small business sites than any other. It is also the cheapest fix on this list.

Is the site quietly telling Google to go away?

This is the cruel one. A site can carry a "noindex" instruction or a blocked robots.txt that tells search engines not to list it. It often gets left on by accident after a site is built, especially if a developer set it during construction and forgot to remove it. In Search Console, the URL Inspection tool tells you in one click whether a page is "indexed" or "excluded". If it says excluded, this is your answer.

Does it load fast enough on a phone?

Google ranks the mobile version of your site and penalises slow ones. If your site takes more than three seconds to load on a phone on 4G, that is both a ranking problem and a customer problem. Heavy images are the usual culprit. You can check yours free on PageSpeed Insights.

Does anything link to you?

Google treats links from other sites as votes. A brand new site with zero links from anywhere looks untrusted. You do not need hundreds. A listing in a local directory, a mention from a supplier, a profile on the platforms your industry uses, all count. This is slow work, but it is what separates a site that ranks from one that just exists.

Are you searching a term you were never going to rank for?

If you are a small studio and you are checking whether you rank for "web design", you will not find yourself, because you are up against national companies. Search the specific thing you do plus your suburb or city. If you show up for "ceramics studio Preston" but not "ceramics", that is normal and fine. Rank for the specific terms first.

Are you confusing the map pack with search?

The block of three businesses with a map at the top of Google is the local pack, and it is fed by Google Business Profile, not your website. If you want to appear there, that is a separate free setup, and we wrote a whole guide on getting your business on Google Maps. Many owners think their site is broken when really they just have not claimed their profile.

The Shopify and Squarespace specifics

If you are on Shopify and not showing up, the usual causes are product and collection pages with the default auto-generated titles, no structured data, and a store that was never connected to Search Console. Shopify SEO is mostly about rewriting those titles and descriptions and submitting the store properly. I cover this on the Shopify page.

If you are on Squarespace, check that you have not left the site password-protected or set to "not indexed" in the settings, that each page has a real SEO title, and that you have connected it to Search Console. Squarespace builds technically fine sites, but it leaves the SEO titles blank by default, and blank titles do not rank.

What to fix first

Work top to bottom. Submit the site to Search Console, fix your page titles, and confirm nothing is set to noindex. That trio solves the large majority of "I cannot find my site" cases, and it costs nothing but an afternoon.

If you would rather not spend the afternoon, that is exactly what a one-time local SEO and on-page fix is for. I run the diagnostic, fix what is broken, and explain what changed, with no monthly retainer. Or just tell me your site and I will give you a straight first read on which of the eight is costing you.