Who Can You Trust in SEO in Melbourne?

Melbourne’s SEO market is noisy. Everyone claims to be an expert, but few can actually back it up.

If you’re looking for a serious SEO partner, you need an agency that understands strategy, executes cleanly, and talks outcomes rather than just rankings.

Full disclosure: we’re StudioBetter, we’re an SEO agency, and we’re one of the five listed below. Take that into account. Everything here is information each agency has made public — no guessing at numbers nobody discloses, no invented claims about how anyone else performs for clients. Where something isn’t publicly available, we’ve said so instead of filling the gap. This isn’t a ranking, just five agencies worth considering, in no particular order.

At a glance

Figures above are as published by each agency, or by third-party directories like Clutch, at the time of writing (July 2026) — not independently audited by StudioBetter. Review ratings weren't publicly confirmable for every agency, so we've left those out rather than guess.

1. StudioBetter

• Founded: 2024
• Google reviews: 5.0 from 25 reviews
• Structure: Boutique, team of 5, no account managers
• Contract terms: No lock-in, 30 days’ notice
• Focus: SEO, Google Ads, AI SEO

StudioBetter is a boutique Melbourne agency running SEO, Google Ads, and AI SEO under one roof, built around the idea that strategy should serve the business, not the other way around — dollars over clicks, conversions over rankings. No sales team and no account managers stand between you and the person doing the work.

• Small enough that every client talks directly to a specialist, not an account manager
• Runs SEO, paid, and AI search visibility together rather than in silos
• No lock-in contract, so the incentive is to keep earning the work

2. StudioHawk

• Founded: 2015
• Structure: Large — 50–249 staff globally per Clutch; “120+ specialists” per their site
• Locations: Prahran, Melbourne, plus Sydney, London, Atlanta
• Awards: 4x APAC Search Awards winner (Best Large SEO Agency); Semrush Agency of the Year
• Focus: SEO-primary, plus content and digital PR

StudioHawk is the largest agency on this list by a significant margin. Founded by Harry Sanders, they’ve picked up genuine industry recognition and built out real bench depth across four offices.

• Enough scale to run enterprise or international campaigns
• SEO-primary rather than a side service bundled with other channels
• More case study volume across more industries, given their size

3. Calibre9

• HQ: Melbourne
• Structure: Boutique, around 16 staff listed
• Experience: “15+ years” agency experience claimed
• Awards: APAC Search Awards winner (ecommerce SEO category)
• Reviews: 4.9/5 from 151 Google reviews (as cited on their own site, not independently verified)
• Focus: SEO-only specialist

Calibre9 is an SEO-only specialist with a particular emphasis on ecommerce SEO and Google Shopping. They sit in similar boutique territory to us, with ecommerce as a clearer specialisation.

• SEO-only, no other channels to split focus or budget across
• Ecommerce and Google Shopping is a clear specialisation
• Boutique team size, similar to StudioBetter’s

4. Aperitif Agency

• HQ: Melbourne
• Structure: Boutique, around 8 core team members listed
• Certifications: Google Premier Partner
• Awards: Global Search Awards 2025 winner (Best Global Small SEO Agency); 2026 APAC Search Awards winner
• Focus: SEO, PPC/SEM, paid social

Aperitif Agency covers SEO alongside PPC/SEM and paid social — a broader channel mix than the SEO-only agencies on this list.

• SEO and paid media managed together under one roof
• Small team, so likely closer client contact
• Recent, credible award wins across two award bodies

5. Optimising

• Founded: 2008
• Structure: Boutique, 16+ staff shown on site
• Certifications: Certified B Corporation, 1% for the Planet member
• Focus: SEO-only, by explicit policy

Optimising has been running since 2008 and, like Calibre9, is SEO-only by explicit stated policy — “it’s all we do,” per their own site. We couldn’t independently confirm a public review rating for them at the time of writing.

• Long track record, running since 2008
• B Corp certification, worth factoring in if ESG credentials matter to your business
• SEO-only focus, no other channels to dilute attention

How to actually choose

The lists above tell you what each agency says about itself. Here’s what we’d actually ask, if we were choosing an SEO agency and weren’t one of the options:

SEO-only, or SEO plus other channels? StudioHawk, Calibre9, and Optimising are SEO-primary or SEO-only. Aperitif runs paid media alongside it. We run SEO, Google Ads, and AI SEO together deliberately, on the belief that they shouldn’t be optimised in isolation — but a channel split that works for a SaaS business might not suit a local service business, and vice versa.

Boutique or scale? StudioHawk’s size means more specialists and more case study volume across more industries. Everyone else on this list, including us, is a smaller team, which usually means fewer clients per specialist and more direct access, at the cost of raw capacity.

Contract terms. Ask directly what happens if it doesn’t work out. Lock-in periods vary by agency and aren’t always advertised up front.

What “results” actually means to them. Rankings and traffic are easy to report and easy to inflate. Ask any agency you’re considering how they define success — if the answer is purely keyword position, that’s worth noting.

If you want the fuller picture on what to ask and look out for, our how to pick an SEO agency checklist covers that in more detail.

Want to talk it through? Get a free audit and we’ll tell you plainly whether we’re the right fit — and if we’re not, we’ll say so.