Short answer: if your website isn't showing on Google, it's usually one of five things. Google doesn't know the site exists yet, something is telling Google not to show it, the site doesn't clearly say what you do and where, your Google Business Profile isn't set up properly, or the businesses above you have simply done more. The first two take ten minutes to check and can be fixed today. The rest take longer, but they're the reason most local businesses never appear at all.
It's one of the most common things people say to me on a first call. "We've had the website for two years and I've never seen it on Google." Sometimes it's a technical switch someone left on. More often the site is there, Google can see it, and it just isn't the best answer to anything anyone searches for.
Here's how to work out which one you've got, in the order I'd check.
Google doesn't rank websites. It ranks pages, for searches. If no page on your site answers the search, there's nothing to rank.
1. Does Google know your site exists?
Type site:yourdomain.co.uk into Google, with your own domain and no spaces. If nothing comes back, Google hasn't indexed your site. That's normal for a site launched in the last week or two. It isn't normal for one that's been live for months.
The fix is free. Set up Google Search Console, verify your domain, and submit your sitemap. Search Console will also tell you which pages Google has found and, more usefully, why it has left others out.
2. Is something hiding it?
This is the one that catches people out, because the site looks completely normal to you. Three common culprits:
- A "noindex" setting left on. Many website builders and WordPress have a "discourage search engines" option that gets ticked while the site is being built and never unticked. In WordPress it's under Settings, then Reading.
- A blocking robots.txt file. Visit yourdomain.co.uk/robots.txt. If you see "Disallow: /" on its own, that's telling every search engine to stay out.
- The wrong version of the address. If www and non-www, or http and https, don't redirect to one version, Google can end up splitting your site in two. Search Console's URL Inspection tool shows which version Google has picked.
3. Are you searching for the right thing?
If you search your business name and you appear, Google knows you exist. The real question is whether you show up for the searches customers make, like "electrician in Basingstoke" or "physio near me". Those are the searches that bring work, and they're much harder to win.
Two tips. Search in a private browser window, because Google tailors results to you. And search from where your customers are, because local results change a lot from one town to the next.
4. Does a page actually answer the search?
This is the big one. Most local business websites have five pages: home, about, services, gallery, contact. One "services" page listing twelve jobs can't rank for twelve different searches. One line saying "we cover Hampshire" can't rank in twenty towns.
Google matches searches to pages. A page about rewires in Fleet has a real chance of ranking for "rewire Fleet". A homepage that mentions rewires somewhere halfway down doesn't. It's why every site we build has a page for every service and every area, and why we've written about why one page isn't enough.
5. Is it Google Maps you're missing from?
For most local searches, the first thing people see is the map and three businesses under it. That isn't your website. It's your Google Business Profile, and it ranks on its own rules: the right categories, a complete profile, reviews, and how close you are to the person searching.
If you're on page one of the normal results but nowhere on the map, that's where to look. Our guide to showing up in Google Maps covers it, and our free Google Business Profile scorecard takes five minutes.
6. Who's above you, and why
If none of the above is the problem, look at who does show up. Open the top three results for your main search and compare honestly. Do they have a page for that exact service? A page for that town? More reviews? A site that loads quickly on a phone? Usually the answer is obvious within a couple of minutes.
That's also when it's worth being realistic about time. A new, well-built site typically sees its first enquiries within weeks, but rankings in a busy market build over months, not days.
Our £395 website and visibility audit goes through all of this for your site, your Google profile and your competitors, and tells you exactly what to fix first. If you go ahead with a Zenlio website, the fee comes off the build.
Keep reading: Your website might have a twin · Discovered, currently not indexed: what it means
