Melbourne / SEO / AI-era search

Seventeen years in search. Now figuring out what comes next.

I'm James Richardson. I run Optimising, a B Corp SEO agency, and spend most of my time helping values-led businesses grow. Lately that means thinking a lot about how AI is reshaping how people find things, and what agencies and brands should actually do about it. I share most of that thinking on LinkedIn.

Founder, Optimising B Corp & 1% for the Planet Dad & sneakers

01 — About

I've spent 17 years helping brands win in search. The rules just changed.

I started Optimising in 2009 because the agencies I kept seeing treated SEO as a dark art. It isn't. Done well, it's a durable, compounding marketing channel built on genuinely useful work.

That hasn't changed. What has changed is that Google is no longer the only surface people search on. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI overviews are rewriting how discovery works and how brands get cited.

Today my focus is split three ways: running Optimising, advising larger ecommerce and purpose-driven businesses on the shift to AI-era search, and building a few tools I'd want to use myself.

I write about most of it on LinkedIn, most days.

02 — Work

What I'm building, and what I've built.

2009 — Present

Optimising

B Corp certified SEO agency helping ethical, values-led businesses grow through sustainable strategy and rigorous technical work.

Active

2026 — Launching soon

SEO.com.au

A new venture. More soon. Think: what a modern, AI-native SEO practice should look like from the ground up.

Soon

2010 — 2012

Digital Sport Summit

A conference exploring the collision of sport, tech, and digital media. Early days, but a formative one.

Little sites I've built for the fun of it.

Weekend builds and local guides. No clients, no brief, just things I wanted to exist.

All designed, built and hosted by me

james.au

Famous Jameses

A directory of the world's most notable living Jameses, built mostly so I could be listed first for my own name.

montmorency.au

Montmorency (Monty) 3094

A local guide to my leafy corner of Melbourne's north-east: cafes, shops, schools, parks, history and how to get around.

swan.st

The Swan Street Guide

Every restaurant, bar, pub and cafe on Swan Street, Richmond. Written by locals, with no ads and no pay-to-play.

04 — From the blog

The latest from the Optimising blog.

These load live from the Optimising blog's RSS feed, so the list stays current on its own. Newest first.

Live from optimising.com.au/rss.xml

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All posts on Optimising →

05 — In the media

Where I've been quoted, profiled, and published.

Mediaweek

AI visibility is the new keyword ranking

28 Jun 2026

B&T

Stop paying your agency twice for the same job

05 Jun 2026

AdNews

Your agency told you they do AI search. Ask them to prove it

01 May 2026

SmartCompany

ChatGPT drives 90% of AI website visits in Australia, but converts worse than Perplexity and Gemini

23 Nov 2025

Inlight

Is SEO dead? How to stay visible in AI search

20 Nov 2025

AdNews

Industry profile: James Richardson at Optimising

03 May 2022

Mi-3

Tip of the iceberg: brands aim to reweight media campaigns to Australia's lowest-carbon publishers

08 Mar 2022

06 — Speaking

Talks, panels, and classrooms.

Shopify Plus Partner Events Series

Organiser and MC across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane — a recurring series for Australian Shopify merchants and partners

2022 — Present
AWIA Offline

Moderator, Melbourne edition

2024
Sydney SEO Conference

On scaling ethical agencies in an AI-first market

2024 · 2025
Freedom Business Summit, Bali

Building a location-independent services business

2023
Victorian Small Business Festival

SEO fundamentals for founders

2019 — 2022
Swinburne University

Guest lecturer, digital marketing

Ongoing