Getting found on Google.
Getting named by AI.
What I do, what it costs, and how to work out which of the two options you actually need. No jargon, no guarantees, and a straight answer if the numbers do not work for your business.
I live and trade on the Coast too.
I am based in Umina Beach. The Central Coast market is not something I researched from an office in the city; it is my own high street.
I have been in marketing since I graduated in 2010, and in SEO since I arrived in Australia in 2015. For fourteen of those years I was an employee, on the client side, which means I lived what it feels like when your visibility wobbles: an algorithm that changes without warning, results that do not match the promises, the sense of playing by rules you do not control. That is not theory for me. I was the one being sold to.
In 2024 I started my own business, right as generative AI began rewriting the rules of search, and I specialised straight away. I keep two to five clients at a time on purpose: no junior on your account, no handover after the pitch. It is me, from the first review to the last change.
- In marketing since 2010, in SEO since 2015. Fourteen years employed, client-side, before going out on my own.
- My own business since 2024. Based in Umina Beach, working across the Central Coast and Sydney.
- ABN 72 589 527 804.
- Two to five clients at a time, deliberately.
- Bilingual English and French.
- Founder of Visible sur l'IA, an independent AI-visibility publication.
- Certified: Google AI (Google / Coursera), Introduction to Claude (Anthropic), Crafting a Winning SEO Strategy and SEO Principles (Semrush).
Who I work with
Small local business
Cafes, trades, clinics, salons, single-location services. Usually a one-off piece of work, and then you carry it.
Larger sites and e-commerce
Where the work genuinely does not stop. Usually ongoing, because the maths supports it.
Agencies
White-label, as the SEO and AI visibility specialist behind their team.
It really depends on the business. I would rather work that out with you on a call than sell you the same thing I sold the last person.
Why me, and not the agency that emailed you last week.
I test it on my own brand first
I do not recommend anything I have not run myself. My first ChatGPT study meant classifying 458 citations by hand before I wrote a single line of advice. If a method does not earn its place, I will not sell it to you.
No guarantees, ever
Nobody can promise a position they do not control, and the algorithm changes constantly. I do not offer guaranteed rankings, and I would be wary of anyone who does.
No lock-in, no junior
Two to five clients at a time means it is me on your account from start to finish. No twelve-month contract, and no dashboard standing in for a conversation.
I will tell you if you do not need me
If the numbers do not work for your business, I would rather say so on the first call than take the money and let you find out in six months.
My prices are in writing
They are on the next few pages, next to what the rest of the Australian market charges. You should not have to sit through a call to find out whether someone is in your budget.
You can check all of it
ABN, certifications, published studies, a real LinkedIn with my name on it. Nothing in this document is a claim you have to take on trust.
I would rather tell you that you do not need me than sell you something that will never pay for itself.
That is not modesty, it is how I want to still be working here in ten years. On the Coast, the next client comes from the last one talking about you at the school gate. That only works if what I sold them was the right size.
There are two jobs now, not one.
I keep these clearly apart on purpose, and it matters for you as much as it does for Google.
Getting found and ranked
The blue-link fundamentals: technical structure, entity clarity, content that earns the click. Still the base everything else is built on.
Getting named and cited
Being the business ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI answers recommend. Same foundations, aimed at a different surface.
A page that ranks is not automatically a page an AI will quote, and I never pretend otherwise.
The number I would actually watch. Out of all the times someone asks an AI a question you should be the answer to, how often does it name you rather than the business down the road? You can sit at number one on Google and score zero there. That gap is what I measure.
No public study settles exactly how the big AI tools pull local data to decide who they name, and I will not pretend otherwise. What I have is an observation: one Sydney client went four months without a review while a competitor with far more recent, positive ones kept getting named in AI results. That is one client, not a law of nature. Treat it as a working theory.
- A Business Profile properly filled in and actually posted on, not claimed once and forgotten.
- Pages that say plainly what you do and where you do it, in the words your customers actually use.
- Reviews asked for systematically and replied to properly, including the difficult ones.
- One structure serving both jobs, so you are not paying twice for the same groundwork.
Before my price, here is the market's.
Most quotes arrive with no context at all, which makes them impossible to judge. So here is what local SEO actually costs in Australia in 2026, from four Australian pricing guides published between December 2025 and August 2026.
| What you are buying | Typical monthly range | What it usually covers |
|---|---|---|
| Business Profile management only | $400 to $1,000 per location | Hours, photos, posts, questions, review replies. No website work. |
| Freelance local SEO consultant | $500 to $2,000 | Business Profile, citations, review strategy, some content and on-page work. |
| Small to mid-sized agency | $1,200 to $3,500 | An account manager, an SEO specialist, sometimes a writer. Suburb pages, link building. |
| Large or multi-location agency | $3,000 to $8,000+ | Multiple locations, national strategy, deeper technical work. |
The other two ways to buy it. A one-off project with no ongoing fee costs $800 to $2,500 in Australia. Hourly consulting runs $100 to $300. That one-off option is the one most small local businesses are never offered, and it is where a lot of them belong.
Where I sit on that table is on the next page. I am showing you the market first on purpose. A number on its own tells you nothing; a number next to what everyone else charges tells you whether it is fair. You should be able to judge my price without taking my word for anything.
Two ways to do this. Both start the same.
Every engagement begins with a free review: your website, your Business Profile, your social accounts and two or three competitors. No charge, no obligation, and it is how we both find out whether this is a fit.
The starting point
- Your Google Business Profile set up with you on a call, not for you in silence.
- One page written or rewritten properly: the one that matters most.
- A roadmap of what to write next, and in what order.
- Training so you can carry it yourself afterwards.
- More pages and technical work are quoted on top, once the review shows what is needed.
The ongoing work
- For sites where the work genuinely does not stop.
- Continuous content and technical attention.
- AI visibility tracked alongside your Google rankings.
- Monthly or quarterly, whichever suits you.
- No lock-in contract, ever.
After the one-off, I do not disappear, and I do not invoice you monthly by default. Some clients come back for a quarterly check, some never need to, and both are fine by me.
- Paid advertising. Different budget, different skill; I will point you at someone who does it properly.
- Social media management. I show you how it overlaps, but I do not run your accounts.
- A website built from scratch. I work on the site you have, or alongside whoever builds the new one.
- A guaranteed ranking. Nobody can sell you that.
Which one you actually need.
This is arithmetic, not opinion. Whatever you pay has to come back as customers, so the first question is how many extra customers a month it takes to cover the fee.
| Your average customer is worth | At $500 a month | At $1,500 a month | At $3,000 a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| $25 (cafe, bakery, takeaway) | 40 customers | 120 customers | 240 customers |
| $150 (salon, physio, groomer) | 7 customers | 20 customers | 40 customers |
| $600 (trades job, small install) | 2 customers | 5 customers | 10 customers |
| $3,000 (legal matter, dental work) | 1 customer | 1 customer | 2 customers |
For most Central Coast local businesses, Option A is the right answer. A single location, a small site, a modest average sale: once the groundwork is in place and you have the roadmap, you can carry it yourself. You know your customers better than I ever will, and most of the ongoing work overlaps with the social media you already do.
If you run an e-commerce site, that flips. E-commerce is a different animal. Products change, categories change, stock changes, and every one of those is a search problem that arrives whether you deal with it or not. Unlike a single-location service business, there is always more of it to do. If that is you, Option B is the one I would put in front of you, and I would say so on the call rather than sell you a one-off that leaves you stuck in six months.
If you are not sure which row of that table you are in, that is a five-minute conversation, not a project. Tell me what one customer is worth to you on average and I will do the sum with you.
What I have to show for it.
To be straight with you: these are my own documented client results, not an independent lab test. They are real and they are dated, and the full write-ups are published on my site so you can read the method rather than take the number on trust. I am not promising you the same outcome, because no two businesses are the same and nobody can guarantee that.
No pitch and no pressure. Bring your website address and one line on what you do. I will tell you plainly whether this is worth going further with.
I go through your site, your Business Profile and two or three competitors, then show you where you stand on Google and across the AI tools your customers already use. No charge, no obligation.
Option A or Option B, sized to what you actually need, agreed together. If the answer is that you do not need me yet, I will say that instead.
If now is not the right time, keep this document. Every figure in it is dated, so you will know when it has gone stale, and the market table is worth having in front of you whoever you end up hiring.
Roxane Pinault
SEO & AI visibility consultant · Umina Beach, Central Coast NSW · ABN 72 589 527 804
roxanepinault.com.au · linkedin.com/in/roxane-pinault