Why your business doesn't show up on Google

Most owners find out the hard way. A customer says "I couldn't find you online", or you search your own trade and town and scroll past three competitors before giving up. The cause is rarely one big problem. It's usually two or three small ones that nobody checks, because none of them is visible when you open the site in a browser.

The good news is that almost all of them can be checked by you, for free, in an afternoon.

First, find out what Google actually sees

Before fixing anything, see where you stand. Type site:yourwebsite.co.uk into Google, using your own address. Google will list pages it has indexed from your site. It's a rough check rather than a complete count, but if nothing comes back, or only your homepage does, you have a crawling problem, and that comes first.

For a proper answer, set up Google Search Console. It's free and it's Google's own report on your site: which pages are indexed, which aren't and why, and which searches you appear in. Everything below gets easier once it's in place.

1. Google can't find your pages

Google discovers pages by following links and by reading your sitemap, a file that lists every page you want found. If the sitemap is missing, or sits at the wrong address, Google has to guess.

This is more common than it sounds. On one repair shop's site we audited, the owner had made a sitemap and believed it was live. It had been saved as sitemap.xml.txt, a classic Windows slip, so the address Google checks returned "not found". The site had been online for years.

• Open yourwebsite.co.uk/sitemap.xml. You should see a list of your pages, not an error.
• Open yourwebsite.co.uk/robots.txt. Make sure it doesn't contain Disallow: /, which tells search engines to stay away from the whole site.
• Submit the sitemap in Search Console under Sitemaps, then check it reads "Success".

Google explains both files in its own guides to sitemaps and robots.txt.

2. Every page says the same thing

Each page has a title: the blue line people click in search results. If every page carries the same title, Google can't tell which one answers which search, so none of them ranks well.

A used car dealer's site we worked on had a page for each of thirteen cars in stock. All thirteen were titled "Premium Used Cars", followed by the name of a town the business wasn't even in. Someone searching for a 2011 Peugeot 207 nearby had no reason to see that page. Once each car had its own title, with model, year and price, each page had something specific to compete on.

3. Your Google Business Profile is missing or thin

For "near me" searches and the map that appears above the normal results, your Google Business Profile matters more than your website. If you haven't claimed it, someone else's suggested edits may be shaping how you appear, or you may not appear at all.

• Claim and verify the profile.
• Choose the most specific main category you can. "Auto repair shop" beats "Shop".
• Add your hours, services, service area and real photos of your premises and work.
• If you work at customers' homes and don't want your address public, set it up as a service-area business.

4. Your details don't match across the web

Google compares what your website says with your Business Profile, directories and social pages. If your phone number, address or opening hours differ between them, it trusts all of them a little less. Old addresses on forgotten directory listings are the usual culprit. Pick one exact version of your business name, address and phone number, and use it everywhere.

5. Your site doesn't say what you do, or where

A homepage that says "Quality service since 1998" tells Google nothing. People search for a job and a place: "MOT in Dereham", "boiler repair Norwich", "laptop screen replacement". If those words don't appear on your site, you're relying on luck.

Give each main service its own page, and mention the towns you serve in plain text. Write it the way your customers talk, not the way the trade talks.

6. Customers can't see your reviews

Reviews influence both whether Google shows you and whether people click. One shop we audited had 57 genuine Google reviews averaging 4.5 stars, and not one of them appeared on its own website. Ask happy customers for a review as a habit, reply to the ones you get, and show real ones on your site with credit to where they came from.

One warning: never buy reviews or write them yourself. Fake reviews are banned under UK consumer law, and Google removes them.

7. The site is slow or awkward on a phone

Most local searches happen on a phone. If your site takes ages to load, needs pinching and zooming, or hides your phone number, people go back and tap the next result. Open your site on your own phone with mobile data rather than Wi-Fi, and try to call or message yourself from it in under ten seconds.

8. It's simply too new

If your site went live in the last few weeks, Google may not have caught up yet. New pages can take days or weeks to appear, and ranking well for competitive searches takes longer still. Submitting a sitemap and requesting indexing in Search Console speeds up the first part. The second part comes from the steps above, done consistently.

A 10-minute check you can do today

• Search site: plus your web address. Do your main pages appear?
• Open /sitemap.xml and /robots.txt on your site. Do they load, and does robots.txt avoid Disallow: /?
• Look at your page titles. Is each one different, and does it say what the page is about?
• Search your business name. Does your Business Profile appear, with the right hours?
• Compare your phone number and address on your site, your profile and one directory. Do they match exactly?
• Open your site on your phone. Can you call or message the business in under ten seconds?

If you tick every box and still don't appear, the problem is usually competition or content, and that's a longer job. If several boxes stay empty, you've just found where to start.