The power of visibility in the Australian Web Awards with SEO
Building the most beautiful, functional and on-brand website is one thing – but helping the right people find it online is another. This is where SEO (search engine optimisation) can help.
As an industry body, the Australian Web Industry Association (AWIA) champions better digital experiences for all Australians, primarily through the annual Australian Web Awards (AWA). Entries are awarded across six categories, including SEO, to determine the best work in digital.
In this blog, we explore the judging discipline of SEO, what our judges look like and share 5 ways you can boost SEO (and awards entry) for any digital experiences.
What is SEO (search engine optimisation)?
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the process of helping your website show up when people search for things related to your products, services, or content. For digital teams entering the awards, it’s less about gaming algorithms and more about making your site easy to understand, useful, and discoverable across search engines.
When done well, SEO brings in consistent, high-intent traffic without relying only on paid ads or brand searches. But when done poorly, it can make your site invisible to search engines and the people trying to find what they need online.
What do AWA SEO judges look for?
The category of SEO was introduced to the AWA a few years ago and, much like accessibility, can be the reason why a site wins or doesn’t win an award category. Our judges have a set of criteria they apply to each entry but in essence, they’re looking for digital work that not only meets foundational aspects of SEO, but also has a refined and strategic SEO strategy.
"For us, SEO is everything,” remarks James Richardson, co-founder of Optimising, winners of Best in Show for SEO in the 2025 awards. “From a traditional standpoint, it's always been about making your content findable and useful, but as we move into the age of AI, that's never been more true.”
“Text is how LLMs interpret and understand a website, so what you say on the page, and how well it matches what users actually expect to find, is what determines how your content performs. It's not about writing for bots or algorithms. It's about writing for real people, and when you do that well, the rest follows."
Here are three front of mind things AWA judges keenly look for when assessing entries.
1. Evidence of a deliberate, strategic SEO approach (not just the basics)
Our judges repeatedly award sites that don’t just work, but have an intentional optimisation that’s strategically mapped to keywords, content, and architecture. There’s an expectation that, at a baseline, the sitemap matches the business and its goals and there’s a clear attention to SEO best practices.
Across our 2025 entries, highly scoring entries have the following in common:
A clear content strategy
Well-optimised meta-data
Strategically aligned keywords
Intent-driven pages
Internal linking that makes sense
Optimised category and collection pages
Holistic topical coverage.
2. Strong site architecture and category structure
This is especially crucial for eCommerce and larger enterprise websites that have a lot of information and/or products. Our judges praise entries that have a solid information architecture that creates intuitive navigation and a seamless user experience.
The subtle signals our judges look out for include:
Crawlable navigation (not JS-only)
Logical category hierarchy
Internal linking between categories/subcategories
Proper pagination, and
Clean IA and breadcrumbs.
3. Real organic performance (especially non-branded growth)
This point is important and seen constantly across Australian Web Awards entries. Many brands rely on strong branded keywords to do the heavy lifting, but they’re leaving huge opportunities on the table by not investing in organic search terms.
When traffic is largely branded, a site might rank well for many different terms… but have zero visibility in search. Our judges have scored sites 0/5 for SEO in the awards if they aren't showing up on Google. Even a technically perfect site will get marked down if it lacks real search impact.
5 ways to improve your SEO score in the Australian Web Awards
1. Fix your page titles and descriptions so every key page has a clear “hook”
Most AWA entries lose points on basic execution, not advanced SEO – so let’s start with content. Many agencies and brands make the mistake of trying to be too clever first without clearly addressing search intent. Focus on human-friendly language that guides a user towards a decision, then layer on your personality.
Your homework:
Audit your top pages (home, services/collections/categories, top products) and make sure each one has a unique, specific page title and meta description.
Replace vague labels (Tops, The Floral Edit) with human-friendly, search-friendly language people actually use (Women’s Tops, Floral Dresses).
Keep titles tight and meaningful (not stuffed, not generic), and make descriptions explain the value and what’s on the page (so people want to click).
2. Add useful content where people make decisions (not just on your blog!)
One of the issues our judges come across is that a lot of website content is very ‘thin’ (less than 300 words). Adding benefits, comparisons, proof points, process (how it works), pricing context, and examples gives a page depth and value, which can boost your rankings.
‘Thin’ pages are especially common on category or service pages which lack a short, helpful explanation telling users what it is, who it’s for, how to choose, what to expect, and a key FAQs. Similarly, avoid copy-pasting content across products/categories: make each page earn its place.
3. Clean up technical ‘footguns’ that block Google (and users)
A great way to boost your AWA entry score for SEO is to check the basics. Make sure pages aren’t accidentally set to ‘noindex’, staging URLs aren’t live in search, and the homepage is actually indexable. Fix canonical tags so Google isn’t told the wrong page is the ‘main’ version (this is a silent ranking killer).
Also, remove mixed content (http links), broken redirects, broken links to staging, and any weird code issues that confuse crawlers. If you invest a lot of time and energy into content without addressing its technical backbone, you’re doing your site a huge disservice.
4. Make your headings and page structure consistent so pages read cleanly everywhere
It’s common knowledge now that users don’t read on-page content – they scan it. The same applies to search engines (and even AI). A quick fix is to use one clear main heading per page (your H1) and keep the rest in a logical order. This means using headings (H2, H3,H4, etc) to structure page sections like you would a document, rather than just for styling reasons. Your users – and search engines – will reward you for it!
5. Build authority outside your website (so you’re not totally reliant on branded searches)
As mentioned above, if most of your traffic is branded, you’re leaving a lot of growth on the table. Link building is a practice that’s vital to SEO because it builds trust and domain authority over time by the acquisition of hyperlinks (backlinks) from other websites to your own. But not just any links – links from industry sites, partners, suppliers, local organisations, PR, podcasts, awards, and expert quotes, for example.
Make the process of link building intentional: pick a few authority themes and build assets worth referencing, like guides, calculators, research, and comparison pages. Don’t forget to track whether you’re growing non-branded visibility over time too, as this will help you refine your link building strategy over time.
Your best digital work deserves to be seen
Whether you want to enter the Australian Web Awards or simply looking for tips and advice to improve your work, consider joining AWIA. We host regular meetups in major Australian cities, host informative online webinars and give you the chance to network with your peers. Better digital work starts with better industry knowledge – and that’s exactly what AWAI is here to do.
The Australian Web Awards recognise excellence across six core disciplines: Accessibility, Content, Design, Development, SEO, and User Experience. Subscribe to AWIA’s newsletter for 2026 awards updates, AWIA news and accessibility events as they’re released.
