SEO Readiness Checklist for Melbourne Businesses

The 12 checks: technical SEO and local SEO baseline

Each item describes what good looks like. Tick the box once your site covers it. The score panel on the right tracks your total.

• 1. Google Business Profile claimed and complete Your Google Business Profile, abbreviated as GBP (your free business listing on Google Maps and Search), is verified, the primary category matches your offer, photos are uploaded, opening hours are current and the description includes your suburb.
• 2. Site stored in Google's index A site:yourdomain.com.au search on Google returns your key pages. Google Search Console shows them as 'Indexed', not 'Discovered, not yet indexed'.
• 3. Mobile-friendly on real phones Pages render cleanly on a current iPhone or mid-range Android. Tap targets are not too close together. Text is readable without pinch-zoom.
• 4. Core Web Vitals (Google's page-experience metrics): page loads fast and stays still Real visitor data in PageSpeed Insights shows the main content appears in under 2.5 seconds on mobile and the page does not visibly jump as it loads. These two scores are part of Google's Core Web Vitals (load speed, layout stability, responsiveness), the page-experience metrics that feed ranking.
• 5. HTTPS everywhere with no mixed content Every page is served over HTTPS. The padlock is closed in the browser. No images, scripts or iframes load over plain HTTP.
• 6. sitemap.xml present and submitted An XML sitemap (a list of pages for Google) exists at /sitemap.xml or /sitemap-index.xml, lists all main URLs and is submitted to Google Search Console.
• 7. robots.txt allows Google to read your pages and links the sitemap robots.txt (a small text file that tells Google what to read) does not block important pages. It includes a Sitemap: line pointing to your sitemap URL.
• 8. Structured data on key page types Structured data (small labels Google reads to understand your page) is in place for Organization or LocalBusiness on the homepage, Service on service pages, Article on blog posts and BreadcrumbList across the site.
• 9. Page titles and meta descriptions on every key page Each page has a unique browser-tab title under 60 characters and a search-snippet description between 150 and 160 characters that matches what the page is about.
• 10. Internal linking between related content Service pages link to relevant blog posts and suburb pages. Blog posts cross-link to related guides. No important page is more than three clicks from the homepage.
• 11. Suburb landing pages for the areas you serve If you service multiple Melbourne suburbs, each one has a dedicated page with real local detail, not duplicated boilerplate. Linked from the homepage and footer.
• 12. Steady review velocity on Google New genuine reviews land on your Google Business Profile each month, not in batches. Responses are written for every review, positive or negative.