Small Team, Big Search Experiments

Meet UR Digital. They share their APAC Search Awards-nominated work and results.

When you run an 11-person SEO agency, you get used to punching above your weight.

UR Digital is a small outfit based in Sydney, built on a simple idea: do good work, protect client trust, and enjoy the ride. We work in SEO, AI SEO, Digital PR, and ASO for brands that range from boutique tour operators and renovators to law firms, not-for-profits and industrial suppliers.

This year we received 12 nominations across multiple categories at the APAC Search Awards. Below is a look at who we are, the work we entered, and how this shortlist has landed with the team.

The “No Soul for Sale” Agency

We did not start with a 5-year plan or a growth chart on the wall. Our only rule has been: Do good work, make a difference, and have fun while we do it. That approach has taken us from $40K in year one to being on track for $750K in 2026, with an average client relationship of more than three years and a steady pace of one new client each month.

The team is 11 people strong and backed by a culture where we have never lost a client on bad terms and never had a team member leave because of work culture. External recognition, such as Business NSW Employer of Choice (Regional) 2025 and multiple small-business award finals, has been a nice confirmation that this approach works.

We are also second-chance minded. Our work with justice-impacted women through Success Works Partners has nudged us towards hiring someone with a criminal justice history as our eleventh team-mate.

The Work Behind the Shortlist

Burke Mangan Lawyers

Our Best SEO Campaign and multiple Best Use of Search/Data/Content/PR entries centre on Burke Mangan Lawyers, a boutique Australian firm in family and employment law.

People do not wake up, get fired, and immediately call a lawyer. They spend weeks searching for questions like “Can I be fired for culture fit?”, “Who gets the dog in a divorce?” or “What are my rights if I am bullied at work while on a visa?”

So we built a full search ecosystem around those questions:

• Manual keyword harvesting, then BigQuery pipelines turning 13.7K → 18.5K queries into structured topics
• Pillar content, supporting blogs, a Knowledge Base for sub-50-word micro queries, and 15+ lead magnets like the Smart Split Checklist and 21-Day Action Plan
• Digital PR timed to legislation and social issues – pet custody in divorce, right to disconnect, bullying vs “tough love” – that landed coverage on Channel 7, ABC Radio, The Australian and more

In six months, the site went from 492 clicks and 9.3K impressions to 1.39K clicks and 179K impressions, with unbranded queries up 7.5x and Bing clicks up from 27 to 709. The firm now averages two qualified enquiries per day, appears in AI Overviews and continues to be quoted in national media – all without paid media spend.

Nouvelle

Nouvelle is a 35-year-old Sydney renovator specialising in premium kitchens and bathrooms. No one buys a $50K kitchen on impulse, so our job was to stay optimise for a long decision cycle.

We designed a funnel that mirrors how homeowners behave:

• TOFU: A Facebook community that has grown from 8K to 365K members in under two years, where people ask renovation questions and see Nouvelle respond in real time
• MOFU: Downloadable guides and e-books to collect leads and position Nouvelle as a trusted advisor
• BOFU: Search-optimised calls to book showroom visits and design consults

Organic search is now their second-largest traffic source, feeding into that community and then into booked consultations. They have stayed with us for more than two years without lock-in contracts, which is the clearest feedback any agency can ask for.

Forward Travel

Forward Travel is a boutique operator offering niche journeys to off-the-beaten path destinations. Competing with global OTAs on generic queries was a losing game, so we went all in on depth, not breadth.

We:

• Fixed the fundamentals on a complex custom stack across 87 destinations and 300+ packages
• Expanded destination pages into detailed guides with FAQs and advice
• Ran Digital PR on themes such as dark tourism, over-55 travel and conservation tourism, securing coverage in outlets including New York Post, news.com.au, escape.com.au and travelBulletin

The result:

• 12x growth in Google impressions and 4x in Bing, year on year
• From minimal enquiries to 7–8 leads per month
• AI Overview visibility and Page 1 rankings for hero itineraries like the West Africa Grand Expedition
• Director David Smyth becoming a go-to expert for travel media, including a weekly radio segment

For a small operator, this campaign showed that you do not need OTA-level budgets to steer the conversation in travel.

Success Works Partners

Success Works Partners is a not-for-profit that helps women with criminal records re-enter the workforce. With a modest budget and minimal search footprint, we focused on giving them visibility when women typed hard questions into Google, Bing, GPT Search, or AI Overviews.

We combined a full technical tidy-up with content addressing ultra-specific questions that previously had almost no meaningful answers online: “Can I get a FIFO job with a criminal record?” or “What jobs can an amputee with a criminal record get in NSW?”.

The campaign now delivers rankings for critical terms across traditional and generative search, and gives jobseekers, employers and donors a clear path to the program.

PSS Distributors

Our Best Use of Search – B2B entry with PSS Distributors takes on UPS systems and tender-driven B2B sales. We focused on mid- and bottom-funnel searches, optimising product and category pages, building topical blogs on themes like N+1 redundancy and UPS topologies, and connecting everything with internal links.

Digital PR then tied UPS reliability to real-world stakes such as vaccine storage and cyber blackouts. The work now drives 4–6 high-value leads per month, including a single $50K UPS order directly traceable to search.

What The Shortlist Means to Our Team

Inside the agency, the nominations feel like a mirror held up to our daily work.

• Ankit Dey, Senior Content Writer: “These awards reaffirm the goodness of the work I do and show how smart content can bring real change.”
• Priya Hinduja, Content Writer: “It is proof that our collaboration as a team matters – and that the impact we create is tangible.”
• Sreearavind S, Content Writer: “This nomination encourages me to keep creating content that makes a difference.”

Pulkit, our founder, sums it up neatly:

“We put serious effort into these campaigns, and they would still be exceptional even if we never entered an award. The shortlist is a validation, not the definition, of their value.”

Where to Find Us

If you would like to talk search with us:

• Website: https://urdigital.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ur-digital

Win or lose on the night, we will still be here doing what we do best – building search strategies that respect users, treat clients like partners, and prove that a small, values-driven SEO agency can hold its own on a very big stage.