Nicholas Townsville: now I'm competing with a brewery

On 27 August, I wrote about the problem with being called Nick in Townsville. Search for Nick Townsville and I found myself looking at Nick Dametto, while trying to convince Google that there was another local Nick worth finding.

Today, I tried the full version of my name.

Nicholas Townsville.

The first result I saw was Selwyn Nicholas Brewing Co.

Apparently, adding four letters has taken my personal SEO experiment from local politics to craft beer.

On my first check today, 12 September 2026, this website appeared to be around fourth for that search. That is a starting observation from the results I saw, rather than a position I can claim everyone will see. Still, it was enough to make me wonder: could nickosullivan.id.au eventually get ahead of Selwyn Nicholas for Nicholas Townsville?

I have a website, a surname and years of working in technology around Townsville. They have beer.

I can see why this might be a difficult marketing exercise.

An unlikely beer correspondent

I am not typically much of a drinker, and I have not tried a Selwyn Nicholas brew. My discovery of the brewery came through a search result, so I cannot offer tasting notes or tell you which one to order.

I am, however, known to not mind a Great Northern Super Crisp from time to time.

That probably tells you roughly how sophisticated my beer commentary is going to be. I am much more comfortable discussing a network configuration than explaining what the hops are doing.

There is something amusing about researching a local brewery because it has a stronger claim to your first name in Google. Most people would probably start with what is on tap. I started with where they appeared in the results.

A little background on Selwyn Nicholas Brewing Co

The brewery is at 365 Woolcock Street, Garbutt, near the Domain shopping precinct. According to its own website, the team converted an old gym into a microbrewery venue.

That is quite a change of use for a building. I spend enough time thinking about how old technology can find a new purpose; apparently, the same principle can apply to somewhere that used to house exercise equipment.

The Townsville North Queensland tourism listing describes Selwyn Nicholas as locally owned and independently operated, with a focus on traditional brewing techniques and a range of beer styles. The Independent Brewers Association welcomed it as a brewery member in March 2025.

I would still like to hear the story behind the name itself. As a Nicholas currently trying to work out how to market his own name, I feel I have a fairly specific reason to be interested.

For now, that gives me a much better picture of the business that appeared above me: a local independent brewery that has given an old space a new purpose, with its own place in Townsville and the wider brewing community.

It also means I have now written about them and linked to their website while wondering how to move ahead of them.

An excellent start to my competitive strategy.

Marketing the right Nicholas

The useful part of this little detour is how familiar the problem feels.

Nicholas Townsville gives a search engine very little to go on. It could be someone trying to remember a person’s full name. It could also be someone who remembers part of a brewery’s name and the city it is in.

Looking at the brewery’s website and local listings, I can understand why it would be a plausible result. That is my reading of the situation, though; I cannot see Google’s reasoning for the order it showed me.

For my part, the introduction I want people to find is straightforward: I am Nicholas “Nick” O’Sullivan, a Townsville IT professional who writes about technology, cyber security and life in North Queensland. There is more about that on my About page.

The challenge is making that connection clear wherever my work appears. Using Nicholas and Nick consistently, linking articles to the person behind them, and writing about things I actually know gives people a better chance of recognising the right result.

There is room to have a bit of fun with it. I can take an interest in where my website ranks without treating every other Nicholas as a branding emergency. And if someone looking for a local beer discovers Selwyn Nicholas through this article, that seems a perfectly reasonable outcome too.

Meanwhile, back at Nick Townsville

There has been little improvement so far in where nickosullivan.id.au appears for Nick Townsville. The original experiment is still running, and a fuller follow-up will come when there is more to report.

It has only been a little over two weeks since that first article. Google’s SEO Starter Guide says changes can take anything from hours to several months to be reflected in Search, so this is still early days.

I will add Nicholas Townsville to the searches I watch, alongside the more specific versions of my full name. Today’s apparent fourth place gives me something to record, and a later look at Search Console should be more useful than repeatedly refreshing one search.

Getting ahead of the brewery would make a funny update. Helping somebody who has heard my name through work or around Townsville actually find me would be useful every day.

Until then, Selwyn Nicholas has given me another story to tell, and possibly a reason to broaden my beer research one day.

For now, I will keep working on the website. The occasional Great Northern Super Crisp can stay an occasional Great Northern Super Crisp.

I had hoped using my full name might make this easier. I had not accounted for the Nicholas with a taproom.