Who we help / Tilers
SEO for tilers
We will start with the part that costs us the sale. “Tiler melbourne” is the worst head term we have measured on any trade — a campaign would need 39% of its searches to break even, and at every assumption on our usual table the ads win. Do not buy that.
What is worth buying is narrower and much better: the tiles are worth about A$3 a search and the water is worth about A$11, at difficulties between 2 and 5.
Same day, written by a person, no obligation. We only use your details to send the audit. Or email louie@superseo.com.au.
First, the basics
Three ways to show up. They are not the same thing.
Worth two minutes, because the rest of this page keeps them apart.
The ads
Paid slots at the very top. You bid, you pay per click, you are there this afternoon. Decided by your credit card.
The map
Three businesses. That is the whole map pack. Fourth place is a link nobody taps. Decided by your Google profile: how close you are to the person searching, your categories, your hours, your reviews. Your website barely comes into it.
The list
The ordinary results underneath. Decided by your website: your pages, your words, the sites linking to you. When we say “organic” further down, this is what we mean.
Structure
We tested a new question in the suburb layer. The answer was zero out of five.
Three trades in, we had established that whether a suburb page should be named after the trade or the job is trade-specific — builders wanted the trade word, carpenters wanted the job, landscapers wanted the trade word again. So we stopped asking that and asked something else: what happens when you put both in, plus the place?
| Place | “tiler” searches | difficulty | “bathroom tiler” searches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geelong | 210 | 21 | 0 |
| Bendigo | 70 | 35 | 0 |
| Frankston | 50 | 5 | 0 |
| Brunswick | 20 | 3 | 0 |
| Mornington | 10 | 3 | 0 |
| Five places | 360 | — | 0 |
Twelve places measured on “tiler”, eleven with demand, 730 searches a month between them.
Where the money is
The tiles are worth nothing. The water is worth everything.
Sixty-six terms measured, forty-seven with demand, forty-six distinct once duplicates are counted once. This is the widest value split we have found inside a single trade.
| Cluster | Searches | Ad value a month | Per search | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leaks, repairs & regrouting | 920 | A$10,870 | A$11.82 | 2–8 |
| Waterproofing | 720 | A$7,860 | A$10.92 | 3–5 |
| Bathroom renovation | 590 | A$7,670 | A$13.00 | 4 |
| The trade word itself | 2,180 | A$7,040 | A$3.23 | 1–8 |
| Tiling by surface | 820 | A$2,490 | A$3.04 | 1–13 |
| Materials & styles | 310 | A$580 | A$1.87 | 6–20 |
| Underfloor heating | 210 | A$2,310 | A$11.00 | 15 |
Pulled 26 September 2026. Cost per click comes out of the keyword tool in US dollars, converted at 1 USD = 1.395 AUD and rounded to the dollar, with every sum done on the rounded figure so the arithmetic reconciles. The suburb terms are counted in the totals further down.
Rent or own
The head term does not work. Here is the table that says so.
We run this comparison on every trade page. This is the first time it has come back negative at every single assumption, and it goes here rather than being buried.
| Share of searches captured by #1 | Monthly clicks | Equivalent ad cost | Campaign cost | Value vs ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-third | 160 | A$1,280 | A$1,500 | 0.9× |
| One-quarter | 120 | A$960 | A$1,500 | 0.6× |
| One-sixth | 80 | A$640 | A$1,500 | 0.4× |
| One-tenth | 48 | A$384 | A$1,500 | 0.3× |
| 39.1% | 188 | A$1,504 | A$1,500 | 1.0× |
The opportunity
Tiling and waterproofing are two registrations, and the Commission published new wet-area guidance twelve weeks ago.
This is the most specific technical material any trade on this site has, and most of it can be checked with a tape measure.
They are two separate classes
The Building and Plumbing Commission registers “Domestic builder limited to floor and wall tiling work” and “Domestic builder limited to waterproofing” as different things. A tiler who waterproofs their own showers is doing work covered by a different registration from the tiles that go over it. Over $10,000 — counting “the costs of labour, building materials, and GST” — both are registrable domestic building work.
AS 3740, and the code clause behind it
Wet areas are governed by AS 3740, waterproofing of domestic wet areas, with membranes classified under AS/NZS 4858. For a house, NCC 2022 clause H4D3 requires compliance with the ABCB Housing Provisions and with either AS 3740 or the Housing Provisions' own detailing clauses. Naming the standard on your website is a thirty-second job almost nobody does.
Three numbers a customer can measure
The floor must be waterproofed within a 1500mm horizontal radius of the shower rose connection. The fall to the waste must be between 1:80 and 1:50. A shower over a freestanding bath needs waterproofed wall to a minimum height of 1800mm from the floor. Those are not opinions and they are not marketing.
The defect the regulator is naming
The Commission's guidance singles out pinholing — failure caused by “inadequate substrate surface preparation and or membrane application”. A tiler who explains what substrate preparation actually involves, and why the cheap quote skipped it, has explained the entire difference between the two quotes on the kitchen table.
Proof you can hand over
Four facts a customer can check while you are standing there.
Three of these can be verified with a tape measure and a spirit level, which no other trade on this site can say.
1500 mm
The horizontal radius from the shower rose connection within which the floor must be waterproofed.
1:80 to 1:50
The permitted fall to the waste. Flatter than 1:80 and the water sits; steeper than 1:50 and it is out of spec.
1800 mm
Minimum waterproofed wall height for a shower over a freestanding bath, measured from the floor.
AS 3740
The standard for waterproofing domestic wet areas. Naming it is free and it is the fastest credibility in this trade.
Common mistakes
Five things we fix on nearly every tiler’s site.
A homepage built around the word tiling
1,600 searches and a A$2 click, because the people bidding there sell tiles. You are competing with showrooms for traffic that wants a product, not a tradesman. The word that describes what you do is the word that describes what you are worst positioned to sell.
No page about leaking showers
A$19 a click at a difficulty of 2, and the customer is in a hurry. It is the best combination of value, ease and urgency anywhere in this trade, and on most tiler sites it is a line in a services list.
Waterproofing treated as a step, not a service
720 searches a month at A$11 and difficulties of 3 to 5, plus a registration class of its own. If you hold that registration it belongs on the page in plain words. If you do not, say who does it — that answers the question a nervous customer is already asking.
Pages for tile patterns
Herringbone, stone, porcelain and retiling are all flat zeros. Mosaic, subway and terrazzo together are worth A$1.87 a search. They are lovely photographs and they are not a search market. Put them in the gallery, not in the site plan.
Suburb pages with a room in the name
“Bathroom tiler” plus a suburb returned zero in all five places we measured, while the bare trade word had demand in eleven of twelve. Two qualifiers plus a place is one qualifier too many.
Areas
Tiling SEO by suburb.
Eleven of twelve have demand, but this suburb layer is harder than it looks — the three biggest places are also three of the four hardest.
Geelong
Ballarat
Pakenham
Bendigo
Frankston
Werribee
Brighton
Brunswick
Craigieburn
Doncaster
Mornington
Glen Waverley
Twelve places measured, 730 searches a month between the eleven that have any. Pakenham gets built before Ballarat: a third of the traffic, at a twentieth of the difficulty.
Free audit for Melbourne tilers. Back the same day.
We’ll tell you where you sit on the map and in the list — and, for this trade, whether a campaign is worth your money at all. Sometimes the answer is no.