Most link building conversations start and end with AusTender. That is a mistake. AusTender (tenders.gov.au) is the front door to Commonwealth procurement, but it is far from the only government-run or government-adjacent portal that will list your business, publish your company profile, and hand you a genuinely authoritative backlink in the process.
Below the federal layer sits a whole ecosystem of specialist marketplaces, state schemes, council aggregators, and New Zealand’s public sector equivalents. Getting registered on these platforms does two jobs at once: it puts you in front of buyers actively looking to award contracts, and it earns you a link from a domain with the kind of trust signal you simply cannot buy through outreach. Here is where to look.
1. Dedicated and Specialist Federal Marketplaces
Beyond the general AusTender listing, the Australian Federal Government runs targeted procurement panels for specific categories. If your business sits in IT, digital, or a NSW-specific service line, these are worth prioritising over the generic tender boards.
BuyICT Marketplace (Digital Transformation Agency) Link: buyict.gov.au BuyICT is the pre-qualification portal for IT, software, hardware, cloud services, and digital labour hire across Australian government agencies. If you sell into the public sector digital space, this is one of the highest-value registrations available, both for the backlink and for the actual pipeline it opens up.
BuyNSW / ICT Services Scheme (NSW) Link: buy.nsw.gov.au/schemes BuyNSW runs a set of specialised prequalification schemes, including Construction, ICT Services, and the Performance and Management Services Scheme for consultants. Membership is mandatory for some categories (ICT being the obvious one), so if you are already required to register to trade with NSW Government, you may as well capture the SEO value while you are at it.
2. Local Government Procurement (Council Level)
Councils rarely run their own standalone tender portals. Instead, they buy through a handful of shared aggregator platforms, which means one registration can put you in front of dozens (or hundreds) of councils at once.
VendorPanel Link: vendorpanel.com.au VendorPanel is the primary go-to-market platform used by hundreds of local councils across NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, and SA for quotes that sit below the open-tender threshold. It is less about a single supplier directory listing and more about being discoverable when councils run a request for quotation, but it remains one of the most widely used systems at the council level and is worth understanding even if the direct link value is secondary to the lead flow.
Local Government Procurement (LGP – NSW) Link: lgp.org.au LGP is a not-for-profit, legislatively prescribed entity that runs approved supplier registers specifically for NSW local councils, regional organisations of councils, and joint organisations. Because LGP is a prescribed entity, councils can procure through its panels without having to run a full open tender themselves, which makes getting onto an LGP panel a genuinely efficient way in.
Local Government Contracts Australia (LGCA) Link: lgca.com.au LGCA runs the National Local Government Supplier Register (NLGSR), a national approved-supplier register built for local councils across Australia. Its “request to qualify” model is open and ongoing rather than tied to fixed tender windows, so suppliers can apply at any time rather than waiting for a refresh cycle.
TenderLink Link: tenderlink.com TenderLink is a commercial tendering clearinghouse heavily used by local councils, regional water authorities, and utility providers nationwide. It is not a government-owned platform in the strict sense, but its client base is overwhelmingly public sector, and a listing here puts you in the flow of a large volume of council and utility tenders.
3. New Zealand Public Sector Procurement
For businesses with Trans-Tasman ambitions, New Zealand runs a far more centralised model than Australia, which makes it a comparatively simple environment to get set up in.
GETS (Government Electronic Tenders Service) Link: gets.govt.nz GETS is the official, centralised portal for all New Zealand public sector tenders and panel prequalifications. Every central government agency and most public sector entities publish through GETS, which makes it the closest NZ equivalent to AusTender, and the single most important registration for anyone serious about NZ government work.
New Zealand Government Procurement Marketplace Link: procurement.govt.nz This site sits alongside GETS as the guidance and open-directory layer, covering open contracts, supplier panels, and the procurement rules agencies operate under. It is a useful secondary registration and reference point, particularly for understanding which panels are currently open.
Getting the Most Out of These Listings
A few things worth keeping in mind before you start registering:
- Prioritise by relevance, not authority alone. A .gov.au or .govt.nz link is valuable, but a supplier register you are not actually eligible for, or one your sales team will never action, is wasted effort. Start with the panels that match your actual service categories.
- Treat the registration as a business development task, not a link building task. These portals exist to generate real procurement leads. The backlink is a genuine, welcome by-product, not the primary reason to apply.
- Check renewal and refresh cycles. Some schemes (like BuyNSW’s ICT Services Scheme) run on multi-year cycles with defined membership windows, while others (like LGCA’s request-to-qualify model) are open on an ongoing basis. Know which applies before you plan your outreach calendar around it.
- Keep your profile current. Most of these registers display an active supplier profile publicly, which usually carries the backlink. A profile that is accurate and complete does more for both credibility and conversion than a bare-minimum entry that just ticks the registration box.
None of this replaces a broader digital PR or link building programme, but it is an under-used layer that most competitors have not bothered to fill in properly. If your business is even loosely eligible to supply government or council contracts, working through this list is one of the more defensible, low-risk ways to add genuine authority links to your profile.
