The NDIS & Provider Marketing Glossary

The scheme & its players

NDIS

The National Disability Insurance Scheme: Australia’s national scheme funding supports for around 761,000 people with permanent and significant disability.

NDIA

The National Disability Insurance Agency: the government agency that runs the NDIS, approves plans and publishes the quarterly data we cite on our statistics page.

NDIS Commission

The NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission: the regulator. It registers providers, runs the Code of Conduct, and handles complaints, including complaints about marketing.

Participant

A person with an approved NDIS plan and funding. Roughly 761,000 Australians, each with individual goals and a budget for supports.

Support coordinator

A funded professional who helps participants find and connect with providers. For many service types, especially SIL, coordinators effectively decide which providers get shortlisted.

LAC (Local Area Coordinator)

Partner-organisation staff who help participants understand and use their plans. Often the first person to suggest provider options.

Plan manager

A provider who handles the financial administration of a participant’s plan, paying invoices on their behalf. Plan-managed participants can use unregistered providers.

Funding & money

Agency-managed

Funding managed by the NDIA. Agency-managed participants can only use registered providers, which is the main commercial argument for registration.

Plan-managed

Funding administered by a plan manager. These participants can use registered and unregistered providers, making them a key audience for unregistered businesses.

Self-managed

Participants (or nominees) managing their own funding. Maximum flexibility in provider choice; they research and decide much like ordinary consumers.

Pricing Arrangements and Price Limits

The NDIA’s published price caps for supports, updated yearly (formerly the Price Guide). Learn it before publishing your prices.

Service agreement

The contract between a provider and participant setting out supports, prices and conditions. A signed service agreement is how we define a won participant in our case studies.

Service booking

The allocation of plan funding to a provider in the NDIA system for agency-managed supports.

Registration & compliance

Registered provider

A provider approved by the NDIS Commission against the Practice Standards. Required for agency-managed participants and certain supports such as SIL and plan management.

Unregistered provider

A provider operating without Commission registration, legitimately serving plan-managed and self-managed participants. Still bound by the Code of Conduct.

Registration groups

The categories of support a provider is registered to deliver. They determine which audit applies; over-registering inflates audit costs.

Verification audit

The lighter, largely documents-based audit for lower-risk supports. Typically $900 to $3,000.

Certification audit

The deeper audit for higher-risk supports such as SIL and behaviour support, including interviews. Typically $3,000 to $15,000+.

Practice Standards

The quality benchmarks registered providers are audited against.

Code of Conduct

The behaviour rules covering ALL providers, registered or not, including honest, non-pressuring marketing. The foundation of our marketing rules guide.

Worker screening check

The state-issued clearance NDIS workers must hold.

White patch

Shorthand providers use for the NDIA’s rules around the registered provider logo: who may use it, and the protected clear space around it. Plain text is usually the safer choice.

Support types you’ll see in this site

SIL (Supported Independent Living)

Help with daily tasks for participants in shared or individual homes. High funding per participant (often $100,000+ a year), which is why filling SIL vacancies justifies serious marketing.

SDA (Specialist Disability Accommodation)

Purpose-built accessible housing funded separately from SIL supports.

STA / Respite

Short Term Accommodation: temporary supported stays, often used for carer relief.

Community participation

Supports helping participants engage in community, social and recreational activities.

Allied health

Therapy supports: occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech pathology, psychology and similar.

Marketing terms, in NDIS context

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Making your website rank in Google for the searches participants, families and coordinators use. Compounds over months; our core retainer service.

Local SEO

SEO for location-based searches (‘SIL provider Penrith’), driven by your Google Business Profile, citations and genuine location pages.

Google Business Profile (GBP)

Your free Google listing powering the map results. The highest-ROI hour in provider marketing; see our setup guide.

Citations

Mentions of your business name, address and phone across directories. Consistency matters; conflicting details suppress local rankings.

Cost per enquiry

Total channel spend divided by qualified enquiries produced. The number we report instead of rankings.

Qualified enquiry

Our reporting definition: contact from someone with NDIS funding (or a coordinator acting for them) about a service you offer in a region you service.

CPC (Cost per click)

What one ad click costs. NDIS terms typically run $8 to $12, which is why loose campaigns burn budget.

Conversion rate

The percentage of visitors who enquire. Doubling it has the same effect as doubling your traffic, at a fraction of the cost.

WCAG

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines: the standard for accessible websites. For NDIS providers this is both an ethical baseline and a ranking factor.

Doorway page

A thin location page created only to rank, with no genuine local substance. Against Google’s spam policies; the reason we cap our own city pages.

E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust: the qualities Google’s systems reward. Named authors, real proof and primary sources are how providers earn it.

Schema markup

Code that tells search engines what a page contains (services, FAQs, locations). Included in everything we build.