Google may not know you exist
Before Google can show your website in its results, it has to find it, crawl it and add it to its index. New websites, sites that have recently moved to a new domain, and sites with a setting switched off by mistake often never make it that far. If your business doesn’t appear even when you search for its exact name, this is usually why.
The quickest test is to search Google for site:yourdomain.co.uk. If nothing comes back, Google has no pages from your site in its index, and nothing else in this article matters until that’s fixed.
Key takeaways
If Google hasn’t indexed your site, nothing else matters yet
Every service and area you cover needs its own clear page
Google Search Console shows you what Google sees, for free
Your pages don’t match the search
Plenty of websites are indexed but still never appear, because no page is clearly about what customers are searching for. A homepage that talks about “quality solutions for every need” won’t show up for “boiler repair in Norwich”. Each service you offer, and each area you cover, needs a page that says so in plain words.
If a customer would search for it, there should be a page on your website that answers it.
Google Search Console is the best way to see this for yourself. It’s free, and it shows which searches your site already appears for, how often people click through, and which pages Google has left out of its index.
Screenshot: the Pages report in Google Search Console
The Pages report in Google Search Console lists which of your pages are indexed, and why any others aren’t.
Quick checks you can do today
None of these need a developer, and each one only takes a few minutes:
Search site:yourdomain.co.uk to see how many of your pages Google has indexed
In WordPress, open Settings › Reading and make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unticked
Give every page a clear title that says what it is and where you work
Claim your Google Business Profile if you serve customers in a local area
What to do next
Work through the checks above, and set up Google Search Console if you haven’t already. If you’d rather hand it over, our SEO team can look at your site, fix whatever is holding it back and build the pages your customers are searching for.
About the author
H
Director, Spider Agency
Harvey is a director at Spider Agency, which designs websites and runs SEO for businesses across Norwich and Norfolk.