coffs harbour, nsw
Customers used to search. Now they ask — and the assistant gives them one answer, naming a handful of businesses. If you're not in that answer, someone else is. Usually a directory that takes a cut for sending you a customer who was already looking for you.
ask it yourself
Type what you do and where you are. Sidecar writes the question your customer would actually ask.
what's actually happening
The assistant needs a source it trusts.
Right now that's the directory — not your site.
It gets quoted. It gets the click. It takes a cut, and it takes the credit — for sending you a customer who was looking for you in the first place.
You can pay to be listed higher. You can pay commission on every booking. What you can't do is own any of it. The day you stop paying, you disappear — because the visibility was never yours. You can't compound what you rent.
what sidecar does about it
A website is where this starts, not what you're buying. The work is making sure your business is the source the answers come from — and showing you what it brings in.
what it costs
Most agencies hide this behind a discovery call. Here it is.
start here
google ads · $600/mo or 15% of spend
meta ads · $750/mo, you supply the photos
ad budget paid direct to the platform, never marked up
who this is for
A directory, a listing site or a competitor is being named when people ask about what you do. If you already come up first every time, you don't need Sidecar.
A booking system, an enquiry form, or a phone number worth tracking. If nothing can be measured, there's no honest way to tell you whether any of this worked.
Industry doesn't matter. Tours, trades, clinics, accommodation, hire — the problem is identical, only the directory changes name.
where things stand
Sidecar is one person: Michael, working out of Coffs Harbour. The person who answers the phone is the person doing the work — there's no account manager in between, and there isn't going to be.
It's new, and there's no case study here yet — nor a fabricated one, because a studio whose whole method is being the source worth quoting doesn't get to invent its own proof.
So the first three clients get founding rates — $750 setup and $495 a month, on six months rather than twelve. In exchange, their results get published: the before, the after, and their name on it.
Six months rather than twelve, because a short commitment is the honest way to price something early. If it isn't working, leaving is easy — and that's the point.
questions
A website in Coffs Harbour typically costs between $1,500 and $8,000 to build, depending on the number of pages and whether custom design is involved. Sidecar // the studio charges $1,500 to build a site, then $895 per month for the ongoing work that keeps it visible — new pages, Google Business Profile management, reviews, and monthly reporting on enquiries. Working within an existing site that already has search visibility costs $2,500 instead, priced higher because replacing a site that ranks carries more risk. An AI visibility audit costs $495 and is credited against the setup fee if the client proceeds within 30 days. Clients own their website outright from launch. The minimum term is twelve months, after which the agreement continues month to month. Ad management is separate: $600 per month for Google Ads, or $750 per month for Meta Ads, with ad spend paid directly to the platform at cost.
When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI for the best business of a certain type in a town, the assistant names a handful of businesses. AI visibility is whether your business is one of the ones named. Most local businesses are not — a directory or aggregator is named instead.
Yes. Clients of Sidecar // the studio own their website, its content and the domain outright from the day it launches. If the agreement ends, all three go with the client and offboarding is documented. That is the difference between owning an asset and renting visibility from a directory, where the listing stops the moment the payments do.
Sidecar // the studio serves Coffs Harbour, Sawtell, Woolgoolga, Bellingen, Nambucca Heads and Toormina, on the NSW mid north coast. It is a one-person, service-area business rather than a shopfront, so there is no street address to visit. The work is sector-agnostic: tours, trades, clinics, accommodation and hire face the same problem, and only the directory named instead changes.
Local search and AI visibility compound over weeks and months rather than days. Sidecar // the studio re-runs the same set of customer questions across the assistants every month, so clients can see whether their position is changing rather than take it on trust. No timeframe is guaranteed: the assistants change which sources they draw on without notice.
get in touch
Run the check above. If a directory came up and you didn't, send the screenshot — that's the conversation.
or send it in writing