Local search is where most Australian buying journeys begin, and showing up in your area is one of the highest-return moves a local business can make.
As a specialist Sydney SEO agency, we help brands turn that local visibility into real enquiries and sales. Below we’ve pulled together the latest local SEO statistics for 2025 so you can see the trends shaping how customers find, trust and choose local businesses, and how a data-driven strategy can put you in front of them first.
Local Search Statistics
Projected SEO spending reaches $1.5 billion in 2025, up 12%.
Australian brands aren’t just dipping their toes into SEO. Projected spending of $1.5 billion in 2025 marks a 12% increase on 2024, and small businesses are investing over $1,200 a month to compete with larger, established brands in their local markets.
One-third of Australians use voice search daily.
Roughly 33% of Aussies use voice search every day, primarily for local queries. These searches are typically 6–10 words long and centre on a brand, product or service.
About 8% of local searches are phrased as questions.
When people search locally they might ask, “Where’s the best coffee shop near Strathfield?” That’s only about 1 in 10 local queries, but aligning content to question-based phrases helps customers find clear, concise answers, and fuels your page authority.
Consumers will pay 22% more for brands with a good online reputation.
Almost a third of consumers weigh online reviews as heavily as word-of-mouth from close relatives. In fact, shoppers will pay 22% more for a product or service from a company with a strong online reputation.
70% of websites adopted mobile-friendly designs for local rankings.
With over two-thirds of Australians owning a smartphone, Google prioritises the mobile version of every site. That shift pushed 7 out of 10 websites in search results to mobile-friendly designs.
About 93% of Aussies search online for hyperlocal businesses.
The Yellow Digital Report 2024 found 93% of Australians search online for local brands, and they expect hyper-specific results fine-tuned to micro-neighbourhoods, districts and landmarks.
“Open now near me” searches are up by 400%.
“Near me” searches are a mainstay of local SEO, but it’s hard to stand out. Optimising for “open now near me” gives you an edge, and that keyword has spiked 400% in volume at a record pace.
Complete Google Business Profiles attract 7× more clicks.
One factor Google weighs is how active you are locally. A complete, active Google Business Profile earns 7× more clicks than an empty one, and Australian brands with active profiles logged the highest monthly actions of the four countries studied.
88% of local searches lead to a call or visit within 24 hours.
About 88% of customers who run a mobile local search either call or visit a store within a day. Accurate business information and responsive contacts keep you in the running.
47% of first-page organic results are business websites.
Almost half of Google’s first ten organic results (47%) are business websites, ahead of directories (31%), mentions (16%) and forums (7%). A robust site is your ticket to page-one visibility.
Local “Near Me” Search Statistics
Near me searches grew by 136% in 2023.
Once people discovered “near me” queries they became indispensable. Near-me searches grew 136% in 2023, and the combined volume of “near me” and “buy now” queries has risen a staggering 500% over two years.
Mobile accounts for 84% of “near me” searches.
In 2023, “near me” searches covered more than 84% of all mobile search traffic, making a reliable local SEO strategy crucial, not optional.
Local Online Shopping Statistics
91% of Aussie shoppers use Google Search before buying in-store.
The latest Google Consumer Insights report found 91% of Australians use Google Search before entering a store. Shoppers bounce across platforms, so showing up everywhere matters:
- Know what your consumers want: Google Trends and Insights give real-time demand signals.
- Become an omnichannel brand: new digital channels can lift ROI by as much as 35%.
- Feed campaigns with reliable data: Google Merchant Centre and Analytics reveal how people find and use your site.
Over 85% of people read online reviews before buying.
In-store shoppers rely on reviews too: over 85% of Australian consumers read product reviews before buying, and 36% check at least two review sites before visiting a local business.
Almost 25% of local search traffic goes to the top-ranking site.
People trust page-one results. Sites ranking on Google’s first page captured as much as 24% of all organic traffic from local searches in 2023.
Local SEO compounds. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, earn genuine reviews, and build suburb-level content. The businesses that show up first are the ones that get the call. A senior specialist can map your fastest path in a free 30-minute session.
Conclusion
Local SEO has become vital to Australian businesses as Google Maps and local search behaviour increasingly shape purchasing decisions. Talk with our experienced SEO Sydney specialists today and we’ll show you how to leverage local search to grow your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Daniel Law
Daniel Law is the SEO Director at Red Search, a specialist SEO agency based in Sydney, Australia. With over 15 years of experience in the industry, Daniel has a wealth of knowledge and expertise in search engine optimisation. He is passionate about helping businesses achieve sustainable growth through effective SEO, and stays across every shift in the search landscape.