The short answer
An SEO agency working on the Sunshine Coast should be judged on who does the work, what happens when that person is unavailable, and whether the logins sit in your name. AR Digital Solutions runs technical, content, local and link work with 32 in house staff, month to month, from one office at Pallara in Brisbane.
Half the year decides the other half
Food, drink and beds carry a serious share of the Coast economy. Hastings Street at Noosa, the Mooloolaba esplanade, Ocean Street at Maroochydore, Bulcock Street at Caloundra, the wedding venues in the hills at Maleny and Montville, and several thousand short stay properties that all need filling.
Trade swings harder here than almost anywhere else in Queensland. December and January run close to capacity. May and June are a different business with the same rent, and a venue that misses summer is negotiating with the landlord by August.
Search behaviour splits the same way. Locals type a town name, because they know the difference between Coolum and Peregian. Visitors do not. They search from a holiday let with no idea which suburb they are in, deciding in about a minute. Both need different pages, which is a fair opening question for any agency you are considering.
The question nobody asks in an SEO pitch, and should
The Coast has a lot of good search people in it. Solo operators, husband and wife studios, two person shops working from a spare room at Buderim or a desk at Maroochydore. Plenty do sharper work than large agencies, and if one of them has your account and it is going well, this page is not an argument to sack them.
The risk with a very small supplier is not skill. It is that the whole account lives in one head and one browser. Flu, a baby, a client three times your size, a job offer. Any of it stops your work for a month, and none of it is a moral failing. It is arithmetic.
Five questions produce answers you can hold side by side. Ask them of us too.
Who else can log in today, by name.
Not a staff count. A second human who has actually been in there.
Where is my account written down.
A keyword map, a dated change log and a plan for next quarter, sent to you monthly. If the answer is a shared inbox and a running conversation, the account exists nowhere but in a memory.
How many accounts does the person on mine carry.
Twelve is a different service to thirty, and nobody minds being asked.
What happens in December.
Your peak is everyone else's, which is when a one person supplier has the least room.
What does leaving look like.
Which logins are already in your name, and what would need transferring. Ask while everyone is still friendly.
If you run one venue with a simple site and your local operator answers those five well, hire them. Small breaks down when you have more than one site, an online store, or a summer where the phone has to ring on schedule.
Search work for a summer business happens in winter
Timing catches venues here. Google takes weeks to reward a new page, reviews arrive at whatever pace customers write them, and a profile edited on the first of December cannot change a booking made in November.
So the year runs backwards from the peak. Technical work on speed and the booking path in autumn, while there is room to test it. Pages for the summer searches written by July. Local search on the profile, photos, hours and the panel questions, kept current rather than done in bursts. Link work from tourism bodies, local news and the events you sponsor, which takes months and then holds. Our hospitality page covers the sector, and the SEO service page the method.
Where else we run search accounts up here
Caloundra, Kawana, Mooloolaba, Buderim, Coolum, Peregian, Noosaville, Noosa Heads, Nambour, Yandina and the range towns behind them.
SEO agency work in Maroochydore covers the commercial centre, and Brisbane suits groups trading at both ends of the highway. For the work rather than the comparison, read SEO on the Sunshine Coast, with other channels on marketing agency on the Sunshine Coast and the site on website design on the Sunshine Coast.
How an account starts with us
The free audit, delivered either way
Technical health, your profile, the competitors above you town by town, and the queries already reaching you.
Scope and price in writing
Named pages, named fixes, and a monthly figure that does not move without your sign off.
Two people on it from week one
An account manager and a specialist, introduced by name, with logins created in your business's name.
Monthly review and the written record
Enquiries and calls first, positions by town second, and the change log.
Reasons Coast operators pick us
Nobody's leave stops your account.
With 32 staff in one building, a second person already knows your site rather than meeting it in an emergency.
A record you can take with you.
The keyword map, the change log and the quarterly plan are documents you hold, not slides you are shown.
Ten years of trading and 96 reviews.
Our reviews are public and average 4.9, which is slower to fake than a portfolio page.
"The local guy knows the Coast better than you do."
Often true. Ask him the five questions anyway, then ask us the same ones. Local knowledge helps with which events to sponsor and does nothing during the fortnight your only supplier is offline.