Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Computershare and Link own every corporate-secretary search and chairs default to the brand the audit committee recognises
Corporate secretarial is a credible-buyer business owned by the registrars. The chair of a $40M private company about to IPO, the CFO of a 200-employee unlisted-public, the founder of a Series C start-up about to bring on institutional investors, the audit-committee chair of an ASX-300 company whose long-serving company secretary just retired: they all Google 'company secretary [city]' or 'ASX listed company secretary' or 'company secretarial services Australia'. The first page is Computershare, Boardroom, Link Group, Mainstream-Trust, MUFG Pension and Trust, Diligent, GovernanceFlow and Boardvantage. Those brands have eight-figure revenue, in-house SEO teams and decades of authority. The independent GIA-and-AICD credentialed practice with Chartered Secretary credentials, real ASX Listing Rules experience, Corporations Act 2001 expertise and the board-portal stack (Diligent, GovernanceFlow, Boardvantage, iBabs, Convene) sits on page two. So the IPO board signs Computershare on a $180K retainer that doesn't include any actual governance advice, just registry mechanics, when your practice would have done the full company-secretarial-and-governance role for $120K with proper board-advice and Continuous Disclosure work.
Good corporate-secretary marketing is three things, in this order: a client-segment service-page library that splits ASX-listed annual retainer, unlisted-public, Pty Ltd mid-market, start-up at Series C-or-later, family-office and PE portfolio company into their own pages, each ranking for its own search and speaking the language of that specific board (Continuous Disclosure and Insider Trading Policy for ASX-listed, AGM mechanics and minute-taking for unlisted-public, share-issue paperwork and ESOP setup for start-up, board-pack discipline and 60+ board meetings a year for PE portfolio); a credential-and-experience layer that puts the Governance Institute of Australia (GIA) membership, Chartered Secretary credential, Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) membership and the years of ASX-listed or unlisted-public experience above the fold on every page; and a Google Business profile that calls out 'GIA Chartered Secretary', 'ASX-listed company secretary' and the board-portal stack you operate (Diligent, GovernanceFlow, Boardvantage, iBabs, Convene).
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the client segments that actually pay (ASX-listed mid-cap retainers, IPO transaction work, PE portfolio company multi-entity retainers, unlisted-public M&A transactions) rather than chasing every 'company secretary' query. Briefs the other agents so the service pages, the Corporations-Act-compliant Google Ads, the LinkedIn cadence and the Google Business profile all reinforce the 'GIA Chartered Secretary with real ASX Listing Rules experience' positioning instead of competing with the registrars on bundled-registry pricing.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and makes spinning up a new client-segment or transaction-type page a five-minute job. Ships a clean service page for ASX-listed annual retainer, unlisted-public retainer, Pty Ltd mid-market, IPO transaction, M&A transaction, PE portfolio company and family-office, each with GIA Chartered Secretary credential in the header, AICD membership called out, annual-retainer band and a 'free 30-minute governance review' CTA, to your live site in two taps.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move corporate-secretary rankings: client-segment-specific H1s ('ASX listed company secretary [city]', 'IPO company secretary', 'PE portfolio company secretarial'), professional-services schema with corporate-secretary markup, GIA and AICD membership in structured data, board-portal stack mentioned in service attributes, and a Google Business Profile that lists the segments you serve and the credentials you hold. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Launches Google Ads on the queries that actually convert ('ASX listed company secretary [city]', 'IPO company secretary Australia', 'PE portfolio company secretary', 'company secretary retainer mid market', 'GIA chartered secretary [city]') with Corporations-Act-and-Listing-Rules compliance checks on every variant and higher bids on the higher-margin segments (ASX-listed retainers, IPO transactions). Excludes the broad 'company registration $99' tyre-kicker queries entirely. Switches LinkedIn ads on for the audit-committee-chair and CFO nurture lane where retainer decisions get made.
Turns every board-pack delivered, every Continuous Disclosure announcement supported, every AGM minute-taken and every Listing Rule 3.1 obligation triaged into a post in your real accounts: anonymised governance wins, the audit-committee terms of reference updated for the latest ASIC Practice Note, the Insider Trading Policy refresh, the special resolution carried at AGM. Builds the 'real GIA Chartered Secretary with proper governance discipline' trust signal that wins a chair who's checked the registrar's bundled offer doesn't actually include governance. You upload one screenshot per win, the agent drafts the caption with client and inside-information references scrubbed and Corporations-Act-compliance check baked in, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces that rank for the queries a chair or audit-committee chair Googles when their long-serving company secretary retires or their company is preparing for IPO: 'company secretary vs registrar for an ASX listed company', 'how much does a company secretary cost for an ASX listed mid-cap', 'Continuous Disclosure Listing Rule 3.1 explained for new directors', 'AICD director duties under s180-184 for IPO boards', 'what an audit committee actually needs from a company secretary'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, every claim Corporations-Act-and-Listing-Rules checked, that pull the credible chair to your site before they default to Computershare.
Your first 30 days.
- Six client-segment pages (ASX-listed, unlisted-public, Pty Ltd mid-market, IPO, M&A, PE portfolio) indexed and ranking on long-tail corporate-secretary queries
- Annual plan tilted to the ASX-listed mid-cap retainer and IPO-transaction lanes where annual fees stack up to $80K-$500K, delivered by Sam
- GIA Chartered Secretary, AICD membership, Chartered Secretaries Australia credential and Australian Listed Company Secretary credential live across homepage, footer and Google Business Profile
- Diligent, GovernanceFlow, Boardvantage, iBabs and Convene board-portal stack flagged on every retainer page (the practical-credibility differentiator for chairs who already use one)
- Google Ads live on 'ASX listed company secretary [city]' with the high-margin segment landing pages winning the bid lift over registrar brand searches
- ASX Listing Rule 3.1 Continuous Disclosure explainer published as the cornerstone director-research asset
- AICD Director Duties under s180-184 nurture asset wired to a 30-minute governance-review booking
- ProfessionalService and CorporateOffice schema deployed sitewide with GIA and AICD credentials in structured data
Corporate-secretary briefs don't go to Computershare because Computershare is the best governance practice. They go to Computershare because the audit-committee chair recognised the name, the bundled registry-and-secretarial offer was easy to sign, and your GIA-credentialed practice wasn't on page one. The work is making sure that when the chair Googles 'ASX listed company secretary [city]' or the IPO board Googles 'company secretary for ASX listing', the first calm-looking result is your practice, with the GIA Chartered Secretary credential visible, the AICD membership called out, the board-portal stack (Diligent, GovernanceFlow) named, and the next available 30-minute governance review already in your Google Business profile.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the client-segment service-page library and the Corporations-Act-and-Listing-Rules-compliant ads for $3.5k a month. Tools are cheap but the Corporations Act 2001, ASX Listing Rules, ASIC Practice Notes and AICD Director Duties sit in the back of your head every time you write a sentence, so you publish nothing. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, launch the compliant ads, post the governance-win stories, and keep your Google Business profile beating the registrars on the local mid-cap brief. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, every draft compliance-checked. Stop watching the next IPO board sign Computershare for a retainer that doesn't actually do governance.