The term 'SEO' triggers mixed responses from business owners when they hear it. For most, it's a vague acronym that roughly translates to 'appearing high on Google searches'. For others, it can conjure images of dark marketing magic that happens between the lines of content on your page and in the shadowy realms of your website's source code.
The murkiness of search engine optimisation is one of the reasons why so many businesses put it low on their list of priorities or outsource to expensive agencies. SEO is full of technical jargon that makes it difficult to understand, and often the impact of changes to your SEO strategy can take weeks—usually months—to manifest.
When you compare SEO outcomes to the near-instant gratification and defined ROI of paid advertising or social media campaigns, it's easy to see why businesses with limited marketing budgets feel more confident putting their money into other channels.
The fact is though that SEO is one of the most overlooked components of your marketing strategy. Research from FirstPageSage found that conversion rates on SEO clicks are, on average, double those of PPC ads, and can be more than 3 times higher for some industries. When factoring in the relative costs of SEO and paid campaigns, ROI on SEO campaigns can be significantly higher over medium to long timeframes.
It’s over these longer timeframes that investing in SEO really pays off. While it can take a while for your SEO strategy to start paying dividends, the results are usually sustained—paid clicks stop the moment you pause your campaign.
The good news is that successful SEO strategies are all around us, and with them valuable lessons on improving search rankings. Let’s take a look at three businesses from the Australian ecosystem—one big, two small, and all growing—that are driving more traffic to their sites with effective SEO strategies, and with them explore the core concepts of intent, authority, and the long tail.
How Canva gives users what they want with targeted landing pages
Canva has gone from strength to strength on its journey from startup to unicorn, and a big part of why is strong SEO. Luckily for us, it also gives the material for a lesson on intent.
In SEO, intent refers to what the user hopes to find when they search for something. For example, if I search 'buy cat food online', I'm probably looking for an online pet food retailer. When I click, I'm looking to buy—my intent is transactional.
If, however, I was searching for 'best organic cat food brands', I might not be ready to buy just yet. I'm looking for more information—my intent is investigational—and I'd like to look at some reviews or comparisons before making any purchases.
There are four general types of intent:
- Transactional: Looking to buy, download, engage ("buy cat food")
- Investigational: Comparing or researching products or services ("best cat food brands")
- Informational: Looking for information or answers ("can cats eat salami?")
- Navigational: Trying to get somewhere specific ("reddit cat food sub")
Intent matters because, in the world of search, first impressions are everything. If a user glances at your page and doesn't immediately see what they want or are expecting, there's a very good chance they'll hit back and find another page to visit.
If I'm looking for reviews or comparisons on cat food brands, a store page with little thumbnails of all the food available wouldn't give me what I was looking for. Likewise, if I was ready to buy and got presented with a long blog exploring the pros and cons of different cat food brands, I'd likely return to the search results to find a store where I can actually transact.
Intent has nuance. Not all transactional searches are at the same stage in their buying journey, and different investigational searches might lead naturally to different follow-up steps. When you're considering intent, make sure to ask these questions:
- Who are the people that would search for these phrases?
- Why would they be searching?
- At what stage of their customer journey would they be at?
- What are they expecting as an outcome?
When you ask these questions, you form a more detailed picture of a search user—not just a person on a keyboard, but a real potential customer that you can work toward converting. Your page content and messaging can also be tweaked to address specific pain points or promote targeted marketing messages.
This might sound familiar to anyone who has set up an ad campaign on Meta or Google Ads. When you create ads, there are details that you use for targeting like demographics, locations, interests, and the rest.
Depending on your customer profile, you might have them arrive at a landing page you've built for that campaign that speaks the language of your target customer and addresses the pain points specific to that customer type.
While organic search pages might lack audience targeting on the surface, getting granular with intent allows you to create highly targeted pages that are built to convert based on the kinds of words people use when searching for different outcomes.
And this is where Canva shines.
Ross Simonds did a case study on Canva's "Backlink Empire", and in it are great examples of how understanding intent can lead to incredible results.
For starters, Canva has two types of landing pages: one for users looking for design guidance, and one for users looking for templates. In both cases, the user is guided to start using Canva with a template. Where they differ, however, is in how they address the problem that brought the user to the page to begin with.
Canva's 'guidance' pages appear in more general and informational searches like 'how to design party invite'. The page looks like a SaaS landing page—a direct hero that cuts to the outcome, some examples. and a step-by-step guide showing how easy Canva's tools are to use.
Canva's 'template' pages are designed with a quicker conversion in mind. When you search for 'party invitation templates', your intent is to transact immediately, whether it's by downloading a template or editing one with a tool like Canva. As a result, these landing pages are galleries of pre-designed templates—click on one and start designing right away.
These two page types show an awareness of where the user is on their journey and the kind of outcome they're looking for with their search. On the guidance pages, the user gets sold on Canva before being funnelled into the platform. On template pages, the user is given options to explore so they can begin designing right away.
Canva's awareness of intent also goes into other aspects of their site. During Covid-19 lockdowns, Canva identified Zoom backgrounds as an emerging vertical as more and more people turned to teleconferencing for work.
In addition to guidance and template landing pages, Canva leveraged their blogs to capture even more users with varying intent by creating how-to guides on configuring custom backgrounds and 'inspirational' posts ("Funny zoom backgrounds that will have you laughing"). All of these pages include CTAs to convert the user, but each is designed around a user at a different stage of their journey.
Canva's Zoom background campaign shows the potential that lies under the surface of intent: by understanding what users search for and why, we can create targeted content that reaches them at any stage of their journey. Rather than just releasing a new category of templates for people looking to transact, Canva widened its funnel with content for users with different intents.
How Urban.com.au optimised content around long-tail keywords for AI searchers
It's hard to discuss anything these days without AI eventually joining the conversation.
When we think about AI and SEO, the first thought that most of us have is toward content creation. As AI writing tools become ubiquitous, creating SEO content like blogs is becoming fast and incredibly affordable. This isn't great news for SEO copywriters, but it's the reality we're facing.
Your second thought might be toward the quality of content that you read. If AI is generating more and more content, and we know that these models are trained on old data and are prone to hallucinations, can we even trust what we're reading when we click a link?
This is a challenge that search engines are facing and one that doesn't have a clear solution, particularly as AI agents become better at interfacing with live data.
But there's a third area where AI is flipping SEO on its head: the way that people actually search.
Typing a search term into Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo is really just the tip of the iceberg. When you ask Siri or Alexa for information, there's a search going on behind the scenes. And when you ask ChatGPT or Perplexity a question, your AI agent conducts a little search of its own.
Most voice and AI searches happen around long-tail keywords. In SEO, the long tail refers to search terms that are more than just a word or two: searches with details, phrases, or entire questions.
Short tail keywords, sometimes called 'head' keywords, are the opposite: usually one or two words that get to your query directly. 'Cat food' would be a short tail keyword, while 'best cat food for old cats' would be a long tail.
Long tail keywords are where some of the most exciting opportunities with SEO live, particularly for smaller sites with lower authority. As more words are added to a search term, its complexity increases and the chances that a high-authority competitor is targeting it decreases.
Long-tail keywords are also what get targeted by voice and AI searches. If you ask your AI agent a question, it'll take a version of that question and run it through a search. Whatever appears toward the top of search results will get chosen and returned to the user as an answer.
But there's a drawback to long-tail keywords: there are far fewer searches on these terms. As we add more words to a search query, the complexity of it increases, and the chances that someone else searched for that and not a variation increases with it.
A much-loved stat from Google is that 15% of all Google searches have never been searched before. That's a lot of once-offs to try and target.
This was a problem that Urban.com.au overcame with a programmatic approach to SEO. As a real estate listing site in a highly competitive vertical, Urban recognised the power of programming when it came to creating content that excelled around the long tail.
Urban's programmatic SEO campaign took the form of dedicated landing pages optimised for thousands of long-tail keywords relevant to apartment searches. Each page followed a similar structure, with unique, relevant content tailored to the specific search query.
Urban identified countless long-tail keywords that prospective renters and buyers were searching for, like “apartments with gym in Sydney CBD” or “pet-friendly rentals in Melbourne”. If they created pages for each of these manually, it would have taken immense time and effort. Instead, Urban used the similar structure of these pages to generate them programmatically.
For example, all of Urban’s pages contain common elements like location, apartment features, and nearby amenities. Using keyword research tools, they generated variations for each of these categories, like “apartments with pool in Brisbane” and “furnished rentals near transit in Perth CBD”.
By combining programmatic page generation with authoritative link building and supporting content, Urban was able to create landing pages targeting hundreds of long-tail keyword variations in hours, rather than weeks—the exact long-tail keywords AI agents and voice searchers are likely to use when making a query.
We saw another example of programmatic SEO when we looked at Canva. Canva's guidance and template pages are all structured on a programmatic foundation; by templating the page design, they can take a list of template categories and use them to generate landing pages for each. This results in hundreds—potentially thousands—of unique, highly targeted pages that can be optimised in bulk and easily expanded as the template library grows.
The programmatic approach to long-tail keywords is ideal for websites looking to circumvent competition to drive traffic on the less-explored parts of search results.
Even though fewer people search for long-tail terms, by programmatically targeting lots of variations, it's possible to cast the net wide enough to pick up lots of little fish.
Plus, with the age of AI and voice search already here, long-tail optimisation is only going to become more important for websites looking to get found through alternative search methods.
How Sharehouse builds authority with free tools
Sometimes the quickest path isn't always the straightest.
Free tools are increasingly common for product or service providers. They provide clear value out of the box and can be an effective way to convert a user to paid options.
When we talk about free tools, we don't just mean apps on your website. Downloadable or configurable templates, resources, and ebooks are all examples of ‘free tools’. Marketers love them because they're an effective way to capture leads: an email in exchange for an ebook is fair trade, and a stripped-down version of your app provides a 'try before you buy' experience with full results hidden behind signup.
Free tools are also an SEO goldmine.
To understand why, we need to look at something search engines consider when deciding where a page should rank in search results: authority.
Authority, sometimes called 'domain rating' (DR), is a measure of how strong your website domain is relative to other domains. The main factor here is backlinks—links from other websites to your own.
In the eyes of search algorithms, a backlink is a vouch: it says "I've read the content of this page and agree that it's useful". More backlinks mean more people 'vouching' for your site, which improves your reputation and overall authority.
Not all backlinks are made equal. Sites with higher authority pass more reputation through a backlink than sites with lower authority. It's like being cited in a peer-reviewed academic paper versus a quote in a high school essay: the academic journal will probably do more for your reputation than a teenager.
For most websites, building authority is the most challenging component of their SEO strategy, simply because it's largely out of your hands. You can write the most compelling content in the world and optimise everything on your website, but until someone else links to your page, search engines will favour other sites when you go head-to-head on competitive keywords.
Free tools are an effective way to build backlinks because they're the kind of thing people want to share. They're incredibly easy to get listed on aggregators and directories, and gurus and influencers are normally happy to share them with their audiences if they find them valuable.
They're also how Jordi Hermoso carved a space for Sharehouse in the competitive rentals space.
Sharehouse is a platform that helps people find housemates. Users can create a profile if they're looking for accommodation, and share houses can list rooms that they have available.
The challenge for Sharehouse came from incumbents—platforms like Flatmate Finder, Flatmates, and RealEstate.com.au are established and authoritative. This means that users searching for 'flatmates' or 'share houses' will find links to those platforms first.
Rather than going head to head with established sites, Sharehouse's strategy involves building authority indirectly—and free tools are a big part of it.
Launched in 2022, Sharehouse's AI-Powered Rental Cover Letter tool allows renters to generate custom cover letters for their rental applications. The tool currently has 590 backlinks from high authority domains like ProductHunt and TheresAnAIForThat, and hundreds more from aggregators and blogs. For many of these directories, all it takes is a free submission to get featured.
But there's another angle: Sharehouse's free tool ranks on keywords competitors aren't even targeting.
Searching for 'rental cover letter generator' returns Sharehouse in the number one spot. While cover letters aren't the platform's primary service, they still provide a funnel for users—after generating a letter for their current application, renters will browse Sharehouse to see what's available in case their application is unsuccessful.
The free tool also ticks a third box: engagement.
Engagement is another murky factor in search algorithms and part of the reason why intent matters so much—when someone clicks on your page and clicks out straight away, search engines think that the page isn't relevant and will show it less on that search term.
The contrary is also true. If a user clicks on a page in search results, spends time on that page, and then navigates to other pages on the site, search engines learn that the page is useful.
Free tools like Sharehouse's cover letter generator encourage meaningful engagement. Because the tool is free and easy to use, users are likely to spend a little time putting in their details to see the outcome, even if it's just to test the tool out.
Final Thoughts
While there’s no quick and easy way to achieve amazing SEO results, putting in a little bit of time and effort regularly—plus a little bit of planning at the outset—can bring sustained, scalable traffic to your site. Canva, Urban.com.au and Sharehouse all employ definitive, proven strategies that align with their products and have seen great success as a result. Not only can this traffic be cheaper than PPC advertising, but it generally has higher conversion rates: especially if you’re creating landing pages with search intent in mind.
It’s also important to look forward with your SEO strategy. The way we access information is changing, and with it the way we search. By putting some thought into strategies that target AI and voice searches on long-tail keywords, you can make your website an authority on topics related to your niche.
Finally, look for opportunities to engage users wherever possible. We looked at free tools in one of our case studies, but this can be achieved with any kind of content—written or otherwise—that has people spending time on your page. It’s good for engagement and is a compelling reason for other sites to link to yours.
Building an SEO strategy from scratch can take time. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools out there that can help with the heavy lifting. Ahrefs and SEMRush are leaders in keyword research and overall strategy, while Findable, another Australian startup, lets anyone create programmatic SEO campaigns like those we looked at for Canva and Urban. These are just a few examples—try out a few different tools and pick those that align to your strategy.
Because SEO is driven by algorithms the public will likely never have access to, SEO will probably always be a little murky, even for those who live and breathe it. But murky doesn’t mean impossible. Take some time to think about your website and the SEO opportunities you have, and get creative with it. You might just find yourself ranking higher on more keywords as a result.
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