Why isn't my business showing up on Google?

You search for what you do, in the suburb you do it in, and your business is nowhere. Or a competitor you have never heard of sits at the top of the map. It is frustrating, and it is common. The good news is that the cause is usually one of a handful of things, and most of them you can check yourself in an afternoon.

First, check whether Google knows your site exists

Before anything else, find out whether Google has your pages at all. Type this into Google, using your own domain:

site:yourbusiness.com.au

If nothing comes back, Google has not added your site to its index, and no amount of tweaking words will help until that is fixed. If only some pages come back, the missing ones are the place to start.

For a proper answer, set up Google Search Console. It is free, and it is Google telling you directly what it can and cannot see. Two parts matter most here:

• The Page indexing report lists which pages are indexed and, for the rest, why not.
• The URL Inspection tool checks one page at a time and tells you whether it is on Google, and whether Google could fetch it.

Common reasons Google can't add your pages

When pages are missing, it is usually one of these:

• The site is telling Google to stay away. WordPress has a setting called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" under Settings, then Reading. It is often ticked while a site is being built and never unticked at launch. Other platforms have similar switches, and a developer can do the same thing with a noindex tag or a robots.txt rule.
• The site is new. A brand new domain can take time to be discovered. Submitting a sitemap in Search Console helps Google find every page.
• Pages are hard to reach. A page that nothing links to, or that only exists behind a form or a search box, may never be found.
• The pages are too thin. If every service page has two sentences, or several pages say almost the same thing, Google may decide some are not worth adding.
• The site moved and the old addresses were not redirected. After a rebuild or a domain change, old pages that ranked can vanish if they were not pointed at their new addresses.

Search Console will usually tell you which of these it is. The fix might be a single setting.

Showing up in Maps is a separate job

Many small business owners mean the map when they say "Google". The map results come from your Google Business Profile, not your website, and they follow different rules.

Google says local results are based mainly on three things: relevance (how well your profile matches the search), distance (how far you are from the person searching or the place they named) and prominence (how well known your business is, including reviews and how often it is mentioned across the web).

You cannot change distance. A business in Dianella will find it harder to appear on the map for someone searching from Rockingham, however good its profile is. You can work on the other two:

• Claim and verify your profile. An unverified profile, or one a previous owner or agency still controls, is a common reason a business is missing.
• Pick the right primary category. This is one of the clearest signals of what you do. Choose the most specific category that fits, not the broadest.
• Fill in everything. Services, service areas, opening hours, photos and a description that says plainly what you do and where.
• Ask for reviews. Steadily, from real customers, and reply to them. Reviews count towards prominence and are what searchers read first.

Google can't tell your website and your profile are the same business

This one is easy to miss. Your website, your Business Profile and every directory listing you appear on should agree on your business name, address and phone number. If your website says one suburb, your profile says another and an old directory listing still shows a phone number from three years ago, Google has less confidence that they all describe the same business.

Check the obvious places: your website footer and contact page, your Business Profile, Facebook, and any directories you remember signing up for. Make them match exactly. Link your website from your profile, and make sure your website names the address or area your profile shows.

Your pages don't answer what people search

Sometimes Google has every page and still does not show them, because the pages do not match what people type. A plumber whose home page says "Quality solutions you can trust" has told Google very little. A page called "Hot water system repairs in Bayswater" has told it a lot.

A few checks:

• Does each main service have its own page? One page listing ten services competes for none of them well.
• Do the pages use the words customers use? You might say "remedial massage therapy". Your customers might search "sore back massage". Search Console's Performance report shows the searches you already appear for, which is the best clue to the language that works.
• Do the pages name where you work? If you serve particular suburbs, say so on the page in plain sentences, not as a list stuffed into the footer.
• Does the page title say what the page is? The title is usually the blue link in the results. It should name the service and, where it matters, the place.

Your competitors are simply further ahead

If your site is indexed, your profile is in order and your pages are clear, the remaining reason is competition. Businesses that have been around longer, have more reviews and are mentioned on more local sites will often rank first. That does not mean you cannot pass them, but it does mean the work is measured in months, not days.

This is where guessing gets expensive. It helps to know which searches you are closest to winning, so you put effort where it will show.

What to fix first

If you are not sure where to start, work in this order:

1. Search Console. Set it up and check the Page indexing report. Nothing else matters if Google cannot add your pages.
2. Google Business Profile. Claim it, verify it, choose the right category and fill it in.
3. Name, address and phone number. Make them match everywhere.
4. Service pages. One clear page for each main service, written in your customers' words.
5. Reviews. Ask every happy customer, and keep asking.

Most small businesses that are missing from Google have a problem in the first three. Those are usually the quickest to fix.

If you would like a second pair of eyes

Our SEO audits check these foundations for you, using your own Search Console, Business Profile and analytics data with read-only access, and rank what to fix first in plain English. A one-off audit is $550, and the recommendations work whichever platform your site is built on. If you would rather just ask a question first, you can get in touch.