SEO is about getting people to spend money with you, NOT your competitors. To that end, chasing after people looking for Sydney SEO Agencies may not be the best way to go. Your primary goal should be to drive people to search for you, find you and then spend money with you.
You need to know your tools.
Google Keyword Tool You will use this to find low-competition/high traffic keywords.
OpenSite Explorer You will use this to find the highest ranked AND most relevany pages linking to your competitors
Directory Critic -This is where you will find the most relevant quality directories for articles and links.
Yahoo This is a much better search engine for finding links, who is linking to you and your competitors. Google Webmaster tools are ok, but for some reason they dont list all of the links.
1.Use Google Analytics. If you outsource your SEO functions, make sure they give you a full detailed report, or at least access to your analytics data. This will allow you to see where you are getting the most traffic from, what is working for you, and what keywords most people are using. If anything it will open your eyes to the volume of traffic that can come from the most random places.
2.Spread your keywords/look for the long tail. Everyone is competing for sydney SEO Agencies. I am not saying abandon this completely, but start thinking outside the box. There are more people searching locally for Hot Water Service (12000+) than for Sydney SEO Agencies (~9000). Also there will be people who are more likely to buy when they are searching for Emergency Hot Water Plumber. Also would you rather do business with people looking for a Cheap Plumber or luxury home plumber or best quality plumber sydney?
3.Build Content. This means you have to look at building up your quality content around lots of related keywords. I would suggest building a blog. You could write a few how to articles. Once you have written them, wait 2 weeks, and then submit them to the article directories listed in Directory Critic.
4.Follow these rules; Use unique interesting title tags for each page. Do the same for the meta description.
5.Use Video. Firstly, few SEO businesses do use video, so you will stand out. Secondly, it is a great way to bridge the gap between those that do and dont trust your business.
6.Dont look for high PR links only Use the Open Site Explorer and Yahoo to find out where the most authoritative links are coming into your competitors. Try to get links in relevant directories. You dont have to chase the top PR websites on the web, because not only is that unrealistic, but you will probably miss out on a lot of other places that could give you quality traffic.
7.Strive for publicity. Sponsor a local soccer team, donate to the local hospital, hold a How to change your water heater event for old people. Write information that can be used by the press and local media. The bottom line is, by doing all of this a) you will get a lot of people linking to your website and b) it will raise your profile in the local area.
8.Get links in sparingly. Only initiate link exchanges and directory submissions from website that are highly relevant and have been indexed for a long time. If you do use a reciprocal link exchange read this first. Avoid buying or selling links. Pretty much the only place you should buy a link from is the Yahoo directory. After that you might want to get a premium placement in a SEO directory online. Everything else is a waste, until you know where your traffic is coming from.
9.Control the number of outbound links on your pages and on pages where you place your links, avoid link-farms, links to gambling, pills, etc.If you want a rule, never link to other SEO Agencies in your country, only overseas. Only link to websites related to home improvement or SEO. Only link to websites that are ranked on the firsst 3 pages of the search engines.
10.Spend money on other things, like Facebook/Twitter, before Yellow Pages. The yellow pages rarely rank top for any of the keywords you would want. Few people actually read the books any more, and there are better ways to spend your money. If you want a cheap alternative to PPC, look at social media, or having a Facebook page, and spending some money on PPC. Also think about using Twitter actively to find clients.
11.Get a Google Places listing, and focus on improving that. Firstly your location matters in Google places, and that cant be faked. Secondly it relies on a lot of data sources to see where your address is, so every time you place a link back to your website, make sure you put your telephone number and physical address down.
Want some more great reading about SEO for SEO Agencies? Here is some great information about the SEO Success pyramid, which has a great, in depth, breakdown of the things you should be looking for.