Yarrum Designer Homes
Building Website Visibility from the Ground Up
Yarrum Designer Homes was founded by Stephen Murray after more than 20 years in senior management at one of Australia’s largest home builders. With a clear vision to create architecturally distinctive, custom homes, Yarrum has built a strong reputation across Newcastle and the Hunter Valley for quality, originality and a genuinely personalised building experience.
With the expansion into Port Macquarie and increasing competition in the Newcastle market, Yarrum needed to strengthen its online presence to match the strength of its brand.
Yarrum already had a well recognised name in the Hunter Valley, but visibility in Newcastle’s more competitive metropolitan market was limited. At the same time, the launch of a Port Macquarie branch introduced a new challenge. Yarrum needed to be discoverable in a completely different region, with no established search presence. The goal was clear. Increase website traffic, improve search visibility across multiple locations, and ensure the website reflected the quality and breadth of Yarrum’s offering.
We approached Yarrum’s website by refining and restructuring what was already in place, removing outdated content that no longer reflected their current work and resolving underlying technical issues that were impacting performance. This included fixing orphan pages, cleaning up messy 301 redirects, resolving broken links that were leading to 404 errors and implementing missing metadata across the site. These changes alone significantly improved site health, lifting Yarrum’s SEO score from the 50s to a consistent 100 within six months.
The focus was to build a structured, search ready website designed to support Yarrum’s continued growth across its key regions.
From there, we rebuilt key sections of the website to better align with how users search and navigate. This included introducing a dedicated Projects section, showcasing more than 20 real homes through detailed case studies and imagery, and developing a Where We Build section to clearly define Yarrum’s service areas while supporting location specific keyword rankings. We also introduced a long awaited Display Home page for Hamilton North and restructured the main navigation to better reflect core areas such as Our Services and Where We Build.
SEO was implemented across both on page and off page activity to improve visibility across Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and Port Macquarie. On site, we refined keyword targeting and content structure to better align with high intent searches, supported by a series of geo targeted blog articles designed to capture location specific demand. Off site, we focused on building authority through a backlink strategy that secured more than 200 reputable referring domains, strengthening Yarrum’s domain credibility and supporting improved rankings across competitive builder related terms.
Local visibility was a key focus, particularly in Newcastle where competition is significantly stronger. While Yarrum’s headquarters is based in Thornton, we optimised their Google Business presence around their Hamilton North display home to better align with their target audience. This included refining business information, categories and location relevance to improve rankings for high intent searches such as home builders Newcastle and related terms.
To support ongoing growth, we implemented consistent monthly reporting across keyword rankings, website performance and backlink activity. Alongside this, we continue to manage Yarrum’s website and hosting environment, including consolidating DNS access, allowing us to respond quickly to issues, maintain site performance and continuously refine the strategy based on real data and measurable outcomes.
Across every touchpoint, the goal remained the same. Make Yarrum easier to find, easier to trust and easier to choose.
The result is a website that works as hard as the brand behind it.
In 2025 alone, the site attracted more than 4,500 active users, with organic search driving the majority of traffic. Visibility has expanded significantly, with over 175,000 search impressions recorded.
Keyword performance tells the bigger story. First page rankings have increased by over 520%, growing from just five keywords to more than 30. High value terms such as knock down rebuild Newcastle, duplex builders Newcastle and display homes Newcastle are now firmly within page one positions, while others continue to move closer.
Importantly, this growth is not just in volume, but in relevance. Visibility is increasing across the exact locations and services that matter most to Yarrum’s business.
Years into the partnership, the work continues to build momentum. With strong technical foundations, consistent optimisation and a clear strategy for growth, Yarrum Designer Homes is now positioned to compete confidently across Newcastle, the Hunter Valley and Port Macquarie.
- Website Management and Optimisation
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Backlink Acquisition
- Google Business Profile Optimisation
- Hosting and DNS Consolidation
- Monthly Reporting and Performance Tracking
