Australia Awards Vanuatu alumna Senily Jacquier, Chief Commercial Officer of Vodafone Vanuatu, recently attended the Search Marketing / Digital Marketing Conference held in Melbourne on 25 November 2025, with support from Australia Awards. The boutique, small-group format of the conference brought together around 60 digital marketers, SEO specialists, and business owners from across Australia, offering Senily an ideal environment for practical learning and direct engagement with industry experts.
The conference focused on what is working right now in search marketing, covering topics such as technical SEO, website visibility, content optimisation, link building, and the rapid changes in search behaviour driven by AI integration. For Senily, the sessions highlighted how essential online visibility has become for business growth—especially for small markets like Vanuatu, where many MSMEs still operate without websites or a digital presence.
One of her key learnings came from discussions about how SEO can deliver meaningful results even for businesses with very small budgets. After raising a specific question about SEO in small markets, Senily received practical advice that she believes is directly applicable to Vanuatu’s tourism operators, local retailers, and rural entrepreneurs. She noted that many high-quality services across the islands remain invisible online simply because businesses lack basic digital infrastructure such as domain names and websites. This insight reinforced the importance of building local capability and awareness in digital marketing.
As Vodafone Vanuatu is the country’s registrar for domain names, Senily sees strong potential to expand support for MSMEs through better onboarding processes, targeted guidance, and partnerships with organisations such as V-Lab. The conference provided her with fresh ideas for how to design strategies that help small businesses establish an online presence that improves revenue and long-term growth.
Conference highlights included a highly informative session on the role of AI in SEO, demonstrating how AI tools analyse search intent and influence rankings. Senily also valued the relaxed networking opportunities, which allowed for meaningful exchanges with SEO experts and business owners who shared real examples from their own markets.
Senily expressed her appreciation for Australia Awards Vanuatu, noting that the conference strengthened her understanding of digital marketing and provided timely insights that will help advance digital adoption across Vanuatu’s business sector. She returns committed to supporting local entrepreneurs in taking their first steps online and building visibility in an increasingly digital global market.