Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
The SME owner Googles you at 11pm in a compliance panic, and your homepage is generic
HR consulting is mostly bought in moments of acute pressure: a bullying complaint that needs an investigation by Friday, a redundancy round the owner doesn't know how to run legally, an STP error the bookkeeper found, a Fair Work claim notice that landed by post. The SME owner Googles 'outsourced HR Sydney' or 'workplace investigation consultant' at 11pm, lands on a homepage that says 'we provide HR solutions across the employee lifecycle', and bounces because there is no service-line page that matches the specific panic they're in. The structural problem is that HR consulting is at least six distinct buyers (employment-law advisory, workplace investigations, HR transformation, payroll outsourcing, WHS consulting, retainer outsourced-HR) and most consulting practices run one homepage that doesn't separate them. Meanwhile the AHRI-member competitor with a dedicated 'workplace investigations under Fair Work Act' page outranks you on the search that pays $5k for a one-off engagement, and the retainer SME (the actual annuity) never finds you at all.
Good HR-consultant marketing is three things, in this order: a service-line split that separates the six distinct buyers (employment-law and IR advisory, workplace investigations, HR transformation and culture audits, payroll outsourcing, WHS consulting, monthly outsourced-HR retainer) into their own pages so each ranks for the specific panic that brings the SME to Google; an above-the-fold compliance credibility stack on every page (AHRI member badge, Fair Work Act competency line, Modern Award currency, registered Migration agent number if carried) because that is the single biggest trust signal in an HR search; and a positioning that explicitly fights the 'we'll just hire an HR Manager' instinct with a retainer-vs-salary calculator, an outsourced-HR-cost page, and case studies that show the breadth of advice an SME gets from a retainer that an internal hire couldn't match.
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 growing the monthly outsourced-HR retainer book (which is where the practice value sits) rather than chasing one-off investigation engagements that pay this month and don't compound. Briefs the other agents so the service pages, the LinkedIn cadence, the Google Ads and the Google Business profile all reinforce the 'AHRI-member specialist with a retainer that beats hiring an internal HR Manager' positioning.
Takes your existing site under management (your hosting and CMS subscription get retired in the first week) and makes adding a new service-line page a five-minute change rather than a half-day rebuild. Ships clean pages for employment-law advisory, workplace investigations, HR transformation, payroll outsourcing, WHS consulting and the outsourced-HR retainer, each with the AHRI badge and Fair Work Act compliance line above the fold, indicative fee bands, and the registered ABN and AHRI member number in the footer, to your live site in two taps.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move HR-consultant rankings: service-specific H1s ('Workplace Investigations Sydney', not 'HR Services'), Professional Service schema with the consulting specialties listed, AHRI member structured data, and a Google Business Profile that calls out the Fair Work Act, the Modern Awards and the AHRI member number. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Launches Google Ads on the queries that actually convert ('outsourced HR retainer [city]', 'workplace investigation consultant [city]', 'Fair Work advice [city]', 'redundancy specialist [city]') with higher bids on the retainer searches (the annuity) and lower bids on the one-off investigations (which pay well but don't compound). Excludes the 'free Fair Work advice' tyre-kicker queries entirely. Runs LinkedIn Sponsored Content for the retainer-prospect SME owner audience.
Turns every Fair Work decision, Modern Award update and Closing Loopholes amendment into a LinkedIn post in your real account, with a plain-English summary and a 'what this means for your SME' line that pulls retainer-ready owners onto your site. Two posts a week, in your voice, with the lead-magnet template hook built in. You approve every draft before it ships.
Drafts the long-form pieces that rank for the queries SME owners search before they ring an HR consultant: 'do I need an outsourced HR consultant or an internal HR Manager', 'how much does outsourced HR cost in Australia', 'how to handle a bullying complaint at work', 'what is the Fair Work Act in plain English', 'redundancy vs termination, what's the difference'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull in the owner researching the problem before they pick a consultant.
Your first 30 days.
- Annual plan focused on growing the monthly outsourced-HR retainer book over the one-off investigation revenue, delivered by Sam
- Six service-line pages indexed and ranking (employment-law advisory, workplace investigations, HR transformation, payroll outsourcing, WHS consulting, outsourced-HR retainer) on the long-tail queries each buyer actually searches
- AHRI member badge, Fair Work Act specialty line and registered ABN visible above the fold across the site
- Google Ads running on retainer-prospect searches with a separate one-off-investigation ad group at lower bid
- LinkedIn cadence running twice a week on Fair Work decisions, Modern Award updates and Closing Loopholes amendments
- Workplace-investigation case studies anonymised and published as cornerstone trust assets
- Retainer-vs-internal-HR-Manager cost comparison page live, with a downloadable calculator template
- 'How much does outsourced HR cost in Australia' explainer drafted and indexed against the generic competitor articles
- Google Business Profile expanded with 15-service list, AHRI member number in the description, and 8am-6pm hours matched to SME owner panic windows
HR consulting clients ring you in a compliance panic, at 11pm, on a phone, with the bullying complaint or the Fair Work claim in front of them. The website they land on has 9 seconds to prove you're an AHRI-member specialist who actually understands the Fair Work Act, the Modern Award their employee is on, and the specific service line they need (investigation, redundancy, retainer). If your homepage says 'we provide HR solutions across the employee lifecycle', they bounce to the firm that has a dedicated workplace-investigations page with a 4-week turnaround commitment.
Agencies are too dear to actually run the six service-line pages, the retainer-prospect ads and the twice-weekly Fair Work LinkedIn cadence for $4k a month. Tools are cheap but you write the Modern Award update yourself between client calls and the outsourced-HR-cost explainer never goes live. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the pages, launch the retainer-tilted ads, post the Fair Work decisions, and keep your Google Business profile beating the AHRI-member firm in the next suburb. The owner makes the calls (two taps to approve a week of work between client visits), the agents do the labour. Stop losing the 11pm compliance-panic search to a competitor with a sharper service-page split.