The age old question for small businesses – and we have heard it many a times. “Why can no one find my business on Google?” Well there are actually a number of reasons why this can be. And we will go through a number of the more common ones that are easy to fix.
If your site is too new, as in just been made, or you aren’t across the Google Search Console, then Google is unlikely to have found your site. There are roughly 130 trillion pages that Google have to know, so your site isn’t their top priority. An easy way to check if Google has indexed your website, is to type into the Google search bar
This way Google will show all the pages of your site that are on Google. Is nothing showing up? Then that means you have not been indexed.
Now here is where it gets slightly more tricky. Indexing happens Either when you submit your page to Google or over time. You can submit your pages to Google by becoming familiar with Search Console or formally the Google Webmaster Tools.
Once you setup and validate you own your site, you can submit a Sitemap in XML or you can individually request pages. If your site is new, submitting a sitemap can be much faster. If you aren’t sure what these are, then no worries you can read more about sitemaps here.
It may take some time for Google to crawl your site, and this can’t be rushed. Submitting multiple times doesn’t help and Google is very clear on this, you just have to sit back and relax.
Common things that can go wrong in this process is making sure your website does not have “noindex” tags. These tags are used on website that may be in development or certain pages that do not want to show up on Google. Such as Thank you pages, or user profiles. Accidentally applying these tags through common plugins, such as Yoast or through WordPress. Make sure if you go into Settings -> Reading that the “Search Engine Visibility” tickbox is not ticked. Another way to check is to right click on your website, click “View Page source” then Ctrl + F or Cmnd + F for Mac to search for “noindex.” More information is supplied by Google here.
Search results are tricky and the subject to a whole subject, which is SEO. There is a complex algorithm which is the subject of lots of research, but essentially Google puts forward what they think suits the user best. They prefer sites that have been around for a long time, are optimised and are trusted.
So for very competitive keywords, like “Solar power” have about 958,000,000 results. If you are new, its unlikely you will rank for this! So think more specific, or get an expert to help you.
If you use Google Search console, it will tell you what you are getting clicks for and what your average rank is for. You can track this and work towards improving specific keywords.
Google search and Maps although linked are very different. There is a different interface to manage listing on Google Maps and reviews. This is done through Google MyBusiness. Once you create a listing you will manage your Google Maps appearance. Much like the search results however, Google has its own way to manage the way in which they show.
