Entrepreneur in front of a laptop wondering why my business website isn't ranking

Your business website should actively help you generate relevant traffic so that you can convert some of it into paying clients.

Has it being doing that or… you can never find it when you google the keywords that best describe your type of business?

If it’s the latter, I can see why you feel like banging your head against the keyboard—more or less literally—and screaming, “Just WHY is my business website not ranking on Google?”

First of all, take a deep breath and relax.

Just because your business website isn’t there right now, it doesn’t mean you can’t reach that coveted first page over the next few months.

There are many reasons why your website is not ranking. Statistically, the chances are that more than one applies to yours.

Luckily, they ALL have something in common: they’re fixable. Pinky promise.

9 reasons why your website is NOT ranking on Google

Here’s why your website isn’t ranking right now (and, most importantly, what you can do about it).

1. It’s a new business, or you haven’t had an actual website for it for very long

Baby using a laptop like a startup or a new small business website

Well, if that’s the case, start being nicer to yourself, and stop expecting unicorns and rainbows. I mean it.

If you’ve only just started out, it’s unrealistic to expect the same results as competitors who’ve been in your same industry for years (or even decades).

Let me say this louder for the people in the back:

SEO (search engine optimisation) takes time!

Once you launch your website, it’ll genuinely take a few months or even a year before it starts gaining traction and for search engines to actually trust it, even if you’ve optimised everything correctly.

Think of Google as a cowardly dog. They’re not immediately going to let you pet them. They’re going to smell your hand first and look at the owner to see if they’re already ok with you, right?

Likewise, search engines want to be sure they can trust you before showing your website to their users. They also need to understand exactly what it’s about, first.

Solution

Be patient, and start fixing the other reasons why your website isn’t ranking.

Give yourself time, but in the meantime, set yourself up for success by ensuring that you’re not making any of the following mistakes.

2. Your business doesn’t exist anywhere else

Going back to the dog metaphor: do you think they’d trust you more easily if you were on your own or with their owner? Yep, the latter.

Same with search engines.

If your business website is the only place where you show up online, it doesn’t sound so trustworthy. The result? Your website isn’t ranking on Google, of course.

Solution

Really put your business out there.

How?

Connect your business social media account to your website (most platforms include a social menu and icons)
Register your business on all the relevant business directories for your industry: for example, TripAdvisor and OpenTable for restaurants, or We Love Florists for… well, florists. Duh
Whatever your industry is, you can never, ever forget about the king of all directories: Google My Business

You know when you look up a company’s name and you see that square packed full of information, pictures, and contact details? With a direct link to their business website?

That’s Google My Business, and you absolutely need it RIGHT. FREAKIN’. NOW. if you want your website to rank.

3. Your business website is too slow

Woman losing patience after a small business website takes too long to load

With certain activities, it’s best to take your time to enjoy them properly, like a walk by the sea, a three-course meal, or a relaxing massage.

Browsing websites, however, is not one of those.

Let’s get real: if your business website takes longer than 3 seconds to load, over half of its visitors will bounce away.

Solution

Run a speed test, and fix the problems listed in its report.

To find out if speed (or, better, a lack thereof) is one of the reasons why your small business website isn’t ranking, you can try free speed tests like Pingdom.

Don’t worry: it won’t just tell you that your website is too slow and leave you to cry about it. It will also show you what specific problems are causing this issue and how to fix them (or, if you already have a web developer, you can ask them to look into it).

4. Your website isn’t optimised for mobiles

User reading a mobile-friendly small business website on their phone

58% of website visits come from phones! That’s over half of them. Are these visitors getting the same experience as desktop users?

If they’re presented with a static page and painfully tiny text that they physically can’t click on, this is probably one of the reasons why your website isn’t ranking on Google.

Solution

Run a mobile-friendly test, and implement those changes.

There are different ways to make your business website more mobile friendly. Some of the most important ones involve the use of a responsive layout, high speed, and… having buttons that are large enough for your audience to click on them with their thumbs.

Again, you don’t need to rely on guesswork. Use free tests like Google’s own version to find out if your business website is already mobile-friendly and, if not, what you can do about it (or once again, if you have a web developer, you can look into it with them).

5. You haven’t taken UX into account

Marketer taking UX into consideration while planning a small business website

Who doesn’t love a good scavenger hunt? Well, the user who’s trying to find a specific piece of information on your website, that’s who!

The little crawlers and bots behind search engines care so much about the opinion of your human audience.

Honestly: if Google thinks they wouldn’t enjoy something, it’s not going to show it to them. They only want to give your audience (and their own users) the best of the best.

Well, is your website the best of the best when it comes to UX? If not, that’s probably the reason why your website isn’t ranking on Google at the moment.

User experience refers to how easy and pleasing it is to use it.

For example, do visitors need to click on five different pages before they’re able to access the information they’re looking for? Not good.

Are they bombarded with pop-ups? Again, not good.

Do most people end up leaving it after a few seconds? … You get the gist.

Solution

Test your UX, and modify your website accordingly.

There are several ways you can do this:

First of all, you can always ask a few peers to navigate it for the first time and give you some honest feedback. Honestly, that’s a great starting point! Even better if you can do that with someone in your target audience
You can also try websites like Fivesecondtest, Optimizely, and Crazy Egg, or even an extension like UX Check

6. You haven’t got many backlinks

Backlinks are some of the tastiest SEO juice!

When an external website links to yours, it shows Google that other platforms are talking about your business.

A website with many backlinks from good sources (not those dodgy websites that try and sell them to you) will perform much better on search engines.

One of the reasons why your website isn’t ranking on Google is probably that you haven’t got many.

Not sure? Find out through a free backlink checker.

Solution

Start attracting backlinks

“Ok, Giada, how exactly do I do that?”

I hear you. Here are two strategies you can try:

guest-posting: when you write an article for a different platform, they’ll usually publish it with a backlink to your own website. So, start pitching to those that are relevant to your business (more specifically, platforms and blogs that your target audience is already reading)
blogging on your business website: more on that later (spoiler alert: it’s also one of the other reasons why your website isn’t ranking. Point #8!)

7. You haven’t invested in SEO-friendly website copy

Laptop with an SEO analysis to check why my website isn't ranking

Did you write your own website copy even though you’re not a copywriter? Or maybe you outsourced everything to AI or the cheapest writer you could find, and they wrote it without a proper strategy?

No wonder your website isn’t ranking on Google!

Of course, your copy should always be written for your human audience first. However, if you want to attract them organically in the first place, you need to include on-page SEO, too.

Now, there are three main reasons why your current website copy isn’t helping you rank:

It doesn’t include keywords in the most strategic places
It does, but it focuses on the wrong ones (for example, they’re not what your target audience is actually googling, or they’re way too competitive)
It’s too short. Anything shorter than 300 words per page is classified as ‘thin content’ by Google, and that’s not good for SEO

Solution

Invest in professional SEO-friendly website copy.

A professional copywriter will solve aaaaaall those problems by:

Using those keywords in all the right spots whenever possible and natural, such as page titles, headings, your main body of text, the first 100-150 words, image alt descriptions, URLs, etc.
Finding the right keywords for your specific audience, focusing on those you can realistically strive to rank for. For example, this could involve keywords that are slightly less popular but much more specific to your business, offer, and target audience
Writing copy that isn’t classified as ‘thin content’ (of course, there are exceptions: for example, it’s unlikely that you’ll need more than 300 words on your Contact page. However, the problem is when most of your website consists of ‘thin content’)

And don’t forget that professional copy won’t only help your website rank on Google: it’ll also convert more of those visits into actual paying clients

Gimme some seo-friendly website copy!

8. You’re not blogging on your business website

Person writing a blog post to help their small business website rank higher

Are you using that Blog section to blow your own trumpet with internal news and achievements? Or—worse—you haven’t got one at all?

Well, this might very well be the BIGGEST reason why your website isn’t ranking on Google.

A blog will bring you a ton of SEO benefits:

It provides fresh content, which shows Google that your website is still relevant
It creates more indexed pages, which results in a bigger website packed full of information
It allows you to target many more keywords and, therefore, attract your audience at different awareness stages
It gives you plenty of opportunities to include internal links, which help Google understand your website structure
Going back to point #6, websites with a blog receive up to 97% more backlinks (read that again) than websites without one

Plus, there are many more benefits to having a blog on your business website, from establishing yourself as an expert to smoothening the sales funnel.

However, since we’re talking about ranking on Google, I can’t stress just how BLOOMIN’ helpful it is for SEO.