For Newcastle businesses who do not know where they rank
What it covers, what comes back, and how to read it.
A report on your own business, showing where you stand against the businesses ranking above you, with the fixes in order.
By Reece Rainer
spareday, Newcastle NSW
Last updated
13 September 2026
Read time
7 minutes
Since it went live my phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
He created a stunning website for us that captures and nurtures leads with an automated email marketing system, which has filled a huge gap in the business and saved a lot of time (and money!).
I now have a custom dashboard that lets me track exactly what my competitors are doing, spot viral content trends in real time, and script high-performing content ideas on demand. The difference has been night and day. I’m no longer guessing.
Most business owners believe they rank reasonably well on Google. Most of them rank reasonably well within a few streets of their own address, and nowhere else, and nobody has ever shown them the difference.
A ranking report is that picture. Where a business actually stands against the ones above it, and a list of what is causing the gap. They are run free for Newcastle businesses. What follows is what it covers, what comes back, and how to read it.
Where you rank across the suburbs you care about, what your Google listing is missing, what your website has and has not got a page for, and the same three things for the businesses above you.
It is four things, and every one of them is a comparison rather than a score. A number on its own tells a business nothing without the businesses beating it sitting beside it.
The listing side of the report is measured against Google's own guidelines for representing your business.
A short document with the grid, the gaps, and the fixes in the order that moves you fastest. Written so it is useful whether there is ever a second conversation or not.
The document is short on purpose. A long report is easy to produce and hard to act on, and the point of this one is that somebody can start on it on Monday morning.
The list belongs to the business and can be handed to anybody. Plenty of Newcastle businesses work through it themselves, and some hand it to whoever already does their marketing.
Because nothing useful can be said about a business without looking at it first, and because the businesses worth working with are the ones who read the list and start on it.
Every marketing conversation starts the same way. Somebody describes their business, and somebody else describes a package. Neither of them has looked at anything.
The report replaces that with evidence, which is better for both sides. It is a couple of hours of work, and it means the first conversation is about a specific list rather than about what an agency generally does.
It also sorts out who this is a good fit for. A business that reads the list and starts on the free half is one worth helping. One that wanted a number quickly is better served somewhere else, and finding that out early suits everybody.
Look at the grid first, then the free fixes, then the gaps against the businesses above you. Start with anything costing time rather than money.
The order below is the same order the fixes are listed in, so the document can be worked through from the top.
It shows where the business already holds and where it drops off. The edge of the green is the reachable part, and it is where the work should go first.
Categories, the service list, photographs, hours, and asking every customer for a review. It is an afternoon of work, and it moves the map.
Read specifically, name by name. What they have and you do not is usually a short list, and usually unsurprising once somebody has written it down.
There should be one page per thing sold. This is the largest single piece of work on most lists, and it is the one paying off for longest afterwards.
Test your own form from a phone with a real address. A broken form makes every other fix on the list worth less than it should be.
With a specific list in front of you rather than a proposal. That is a better conversation for both sides than a package would be.
A couple of days to come back. The fixes on it then run on their own timelines: the listing moves quickly, and pages and reviews are the slow half of it.
The report is a picture of one moment. Where somebody acts on it, it is worth running again on the same points later, because two grids months apart are the only honest measure.
A Newcastle business showing up for its own name and not much else, or one already paying for marketing and unsure what it is getting. It is less useful for a business with no website yet.
It is worth being straight about who gets something out of this, because a report telling a business what it already knew wastes everybody's time.
Where there is no website yet, the report has less to look at. The listing half of it still applies, and that half is worth doing on its own anyway.
What has to be provided, what happens to your details, who else sees it, and what happens afterwards. There are short answers to all four.
These are the questions people ask before sending any details, so they are answered here rather than on a call.
Anybody who would rather simply have the conversation can use the phone number below, which reaches a person directly.
The most common reaction to one of these is surprise at the grid, because a business that believed it ranked well usually ranks well within a few streets of its own address. That one picture is worth the couple of hours on its own.
It is a look at where a business currently stands on Google against the businesses above it, with a list of what is causing the gap.
It is a check of the same search from a spread of points across an area, showing your position at each one rather than a single number.
The business name and the suburbs you want work from. Everything the report looks at is already public information.
Not for the report itself. Everything in it is visible from the outside, so nothing has to be handed over to get one.
It takes a few days. It is a couple of hours of real work rather than something generated automatically.
Yes, the list is yours. Plenty of Newcastle businesses work through it themselves or hand it to whoever already does their marketing.
You have the list to act on. Whether there is a second conversation is your call, and the list works either way.