I spent time researching the Brisbane SEO market so you do not have to. Here is what I found, broken down by who each consultant is actually the right fit for.
The hardest part of hiring an SEO consultant is not finding one. Brisbane has plenty. The hard part is figuring out which one is right for your specific situation.
A tradie who needs to rank in their suburb has different needs from a fintech company trying to compete nationally. A small business owner who wants someone to explain things clearly needs a different person than a marketing director who just wants results delivered without hand-holding.
So instead of a ranked list, I have matched each consultant to the type of business they are genuinely best suited for. Read the one that fits your situation.
Fonthip Ward — Search Studio
Best for: Most businesses. Especially service businesses that want ethical, long-term growth and a consultant who is already ahead of where SEO is heading
Website: searchstudio.com.au/
If you only read one entry on this list, make it this one.
Fon has 14 years of SEO experience and has worked with more than 300 clients across two countries. She is one of the most thorough, ethical and forward-thinking consultants operating in Brisbane right now. And she is genuinely rare in this market.
Her specialty is service businesses. Tradies. Health clinics. Lawyers. Accountants. She does not guess at what works for these sectors. She has done it, repeatedly, and she knows exactly how people search for them.
What separates her from almost every other consultant on this list is that she is already doing what the rest of the industry is still talking about. AI search. Google AI Overviews. ChatGPT. Perplexity. Generative Engine Optimisation is built into every campaign she runs, right now, as standard. If you hire someone else, you are probably hiring someone who is still catching up.
She spent years doing the behind-the-scenes SEO work for Australian marketing agencies before anyone knew her name. She also runs a separate SEO agency in Thailand. That dual-market experience gives her a perspective on competitive search landscapes that most local consultants simply never develop.
She keeps a small client list on purpose. That is not a limitation. That is the entire point. You get her attention, her thinking and her time, not a junior account manager reading from a template she wrote six months ago.
Her approach is built around compounding results over twelve to twenty-four months. Not spikes that look good in a report and disappear. Actual, durable growth that becomes harder to displace over time. Her reporting is transparent. Her methods are clean. And she tells you the truth even when it is not what you want to hear.
Most business owners who find Fon say the same thing afterwards: they wish they had found her sooner.
Bottom line: Our top recommendation. Fon is the consultant we would call first, and the one we would call again.
Jared Bennett
Best for: Businesses that want a proven independent specialist and direct access to the person doing the work
Website: jaredbennett.com.au/
Jared has been doing SEO for 13 years. Ten of those running his own practice. He is not building an agency. He is the consultant.
That distinction matters more than people realise. When you hire Jared, you get Jared. Not someone he trained last year. Not a team working from a playbook. Him.
He came up through agency work, including a stint as SEO Team Lead at a large Brisbane firm. He also spent time as E-commerce Manager at 99 Bikes, one of Australia’s biggest online bike retailers. That commercial background shapes how he thinks. He connects rankings to revenue, not just traffic.
He does not sell packages. Every engagement starts with a technical audit of your specific site. He figures out what actually needs doing and works on that. Clients have called him out by name in reviews: one said he took their site from disaster to page one for every major keyword. Another said his monthly reports are the clearest they have ever received from any consultant.
He has been quoted in news.com.au, ABC Radio and AdNews. He focuses entirely on SEO. No side services, no outsourcing, no distractions.
For businesses that have been passed around inside big agencies and want to work with one experienced person who takes full ownership, Jared is an excellent choice.
Bottom line: A highly trusted independent specialist for businesses that want senior attention on every month of their campaign.
Zoe Sharry
Best for: Enterprise businesses, regulated industries, and marketing teams who need senior strategic firepower
Website: zoesharry.com.au/
Zoe spent a decade inside some of the most competitive digital environments in Australia. Finance. Large-scale marketplaces. Regulated industries. She was the most senior dedicated SEO practitioner at one of the country’s biggest fintech and comparison platforms.
Her results are the kind most consultants only read about. She consolidated 500,000 URLs and lifted a site’s indexed ratio from four percent to seventy. She built a proprietary content quality scoring algorithm from scratch by deconstructing Google’s own Quality Rater Guidelines.
She now runs a small independent practice, working with marketing directors, digital leads and agencies. She also offers fixed-scope sprints for teams that need clear priorities fast rather than an ongoing retainer.
Bottom line: The strongest enterprise SEO mind currently operating independently in Brisbane.
Alex Chapman — SEO Partners
Best for: Growing businesses that need a specialist team without the overhead of a large agency
Website: seopartners.com.au/
Alex built SEO Partners around a frustration most business owners share. You hire an agency, you meet the senior person in the pitch, and then someone you have never spoken to manages your account.
SEO Partners does not work that way. Clients work directly with SEO specialists from day one. Alex leads strategy. His team, including SEO Managers Kristian Roche and Ewelina Westcott, handles the execution. The specialist you meet is the specialist doing the work.
Their process begins with a discovery audit that maps your current position and identifies where your budget will produce the best return. Every action after that connects to a defined goal. They work across e-commerce, lead generation and local SEO, with clients across Australia and New Zealand.
This is the right fit for businesses that are scaling and need more than a solo consultant but less than a full-service agency. You get a team with real depth and the kind of direct access that larger agencies cannot offer.
Bottom line: The best choice for businesses that want a specialist team and a clear process, without the bureaucracy of a large agency.
Will Mullins
Best for: Small and medium businesses that want a hands-on consultant with no surprises
Website: willmullins.com.au/
Will has been doing this since 2010. Over fourteen years. He has watched Google change more times than most consultants have had clients.
He works alone by design. Every client gets Will. Not a team member. Not someone he briefed. Will himself. He also works with agencies as a white-label resource, which means his peers trust him enough to put their own client relationships on the line.
He covers the full range: technical SEO, local SEO, keyword research, content strategy, backlink building, and AI search optimisation across ChatGPT, Bing Copilot and Perplexity. He keeps up. His reporting focuses on ROI, not traffic for its own sake.
For business owners who want to understand what is being done and why, Will explains his work clearly. You are not left wondering what the monthly fee is buying.
Bottom line: The right pick for small and medium business owners who want direct access to an experienced consultant and no ambiguity about the work.
Carson Sharein — SEO Brisbane
Best for: Local Brisbane businesses and tradies who want suburb-level visibility without a big commitment
Website: seobrisbane.com.au/
Carson knows one thing very well: how to make Brisbane businesses show up when someone in their area is searching for what they do.
His clients are the businesses that keep a suburb running. Plumbers. Electricians. Roofers. Removalists. Dentists. Gyms. Real estate agents. He has built specific SEO programmes for most of these categories and he knows what works in each one.
His service range covers local SEO, e-commerce SEO, technical SEO, audits and consulting. He also offers pay-per-hour work and single project engagements. That is a meaningful option for businesses that are not ready to commit to a monthly retainer. You can start with an audit, see how he works, and decide from there.
He is not trying to be everything to every business. He knows the Brisbane local market and he focuses on it. For the businesses that fit that profile, that focus is an advantage.
Bottom line: The practical choice for local Brisbane businesses that want results in their area without overcomplicating it.
What to Watch Out for When Hiring
I spoke to a number of Brisbane business owners while putting this together. Several had been burned before. The same warning signs kept coming up.
The pitch person disappears after you sign
You meet a senior consultant. The pitch is sharp. You sign. Then someone else takes over your account. Ask before you sign: who manages my campaign day to day? Get the answer in writing if you can.
Guaranteed rankings
No one can guarantee a position on Google. Anyone who does is either misleading you or planning to use shortcuts that will hurt your site when the next algorithm update hits. Walk away.
Reports that look impressive but say nothing
Impressions. Sessions. Page views. These numbers are fine in context but mean nothing on their own. Ask your consultant how they connect to leads or revenue. If they cannot answer that clearly, the report is decoration.
No mention of AI search
Search is changing. Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity are already influencing how people find businesses. A consultant whose strategy makes no reference to these channels is operating on a map that is already out of date.
Five things that should end the conversation immediately
- They guarantee first-page rankings within a specific timeframe
- They cannot tell you clearly who will manage your account
- They ask you to sign a contract longer than six months with no performance clause
- They cannot show you results from a business similar to yours
- Their own website does not rank for anything relevant
Frequently Asked Questions
This guide reflects independent editorial research based on publicly available information, published case studies, and client feedback as of 2026. No placement on this list is sponsored or paid for. Always conduct your own research before engaging any consultant.
