Why Is My Website NOT Showing on Google (& How to Fix It)

Jun 7

Screen with a website not showing up on Google

‘Ugh, why is my website not showing on Google?!’

Lots of business owners end up asking themselves this question at some point (so, if it makes you feel a teensy bit better, you’re not alone).

But I get your disappointment.

Maybe you thought that all you needed was to create a quick website, churn out a few words per page, and people would have magically started finding it?

Well, the last part can still be true in a few months, but, if your website isn’t showing up on Google just yet, you first need to fix some of the following issues.

To help you better understand why some websites show up on Google and others don’t, let’s start with this little overview.

Conditions needed for websites to show up on Google

Page where websites can show up on Google

Websites that rank on Google and other search engines meet all three of these conditions:

Google knows that this website exists in the first place, and it can easily find and access all of its pages
This website contains a page that is a relevant match for a specific keyword
It has proved to Google that that specific page deserves to rank for that keyword as it is one of the very best on that subject

How do I get my website to show up on Google?

Basically, to get your website to show up on Google you must:

make it easy for this search engine to find and understand your pages
optimise most of them for on-page SEO and your entire website for off-page SEO
include relevant high-quality content that allows you to stand out against your competitors

In other words, you have to meet the three conditions we’ve just covered.

I’ll explain to you how when we start looking at the reasons why your website isn’t showing on Google in the first place.

Very soon!

But, first, let’s be realistic:

How long does it take for a website to show up on Google?

This search engine’s algorithm is constantly changing, so it could take as little as 4 days for your website to show up on Google… or as long as 6 months. (1)

However, this simply means that Google has started crawling it and attributing authority to your domain, not that you will already show up on the first page for your target keywords.

As I always say, be realistic: SEO takes time!

For a page to reach the top results, we’re talking about 6-12 months or longer. In fact, only 5.7% of the pages ranking in the top-ten results of Google’s first page were published within the year! (2)

Once again, this won’t happen automatically: your page still needs to meet the three conditions we’ve looked at.

If you’ve been asking yourself ‘why is my website not showing on Google’, the chances are that your situation will be the same in 6 months if you don’t do anything about it.

Buuuuuuut you’re here, so that tells me that you’re actually going to put my tips into practice and fix it, right?

Why is my website not showing on google? Top 14 Reasons & Solutions

My advice? Bookmark this blog post so that you can go through EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. one of them without forgetting about it.

1. You have only just launched your website

Business owner registering on Google Search Console so that their website can show up on Google

Ok, slow down then, my friend! If you’ve literally only just created your business website, it’s TOTALLY normal that it isn’t ranking.

As we’ve seen earlier, it can take up to 6 months for Google to notice it.

However, there are a few things you can do to speed up this process.

SOLUTION

Create a Google Search Console account and link it to your website.

Then, create a sitemap and submit it through Google Search Console: Sitemaps -> Enter sitemap URL -> Submit

A sitemap is basically there to help search engines understand the hierarchy of your website pages and show them how to crawl them correctly.

How you create a sitemap depends on what platform you’ve used to build your website, but most of them let you do it automatically (how cool is that?!)

2. Your business doesn’t exist anywhere else

Screenshot of a website showing up on Google through Google My Business — Example of how my website shows up on Google thanks to my Google My Business page

If you’re wondering ‘why is my website not showing on Google’ and you don’t even know what Google My Business is, well… this might be THE answer for you.

The thing is, you probably do know about it but aren’t familiar with the name.

SOLUTION

You know when you google something and you’re presented with a separate section on the right of all the search results? With pictures, a link to the company’s website, contact details, and an overview?

That’s what your potential customers will be able to see for your company if you register it on Google My Business!

This means you will also show up on Google Maps, which is always handy.

You should register your website on other relevant directories too, though.

For example, if you have a restaurant you’ll want to be on TripAdvisor, whereas if you provide services locally you should check out Yelp.

A trick? Just type your industry name and then ‘business directories’ on Google, and you’ll find all the relevant ones for you.

3. You’re stopping search engines from indexing or crawling your pages

Stop sign as a metaphor for problems that are stopping your website from showing up on google

Uuuuuuh, it’s getting technical. Sorry about that.

The good news is that this is highly unlikely to be the reason why your website isn’t showing up on Google. If you haven’t touched any code or ticked any weird boxes, you’re fine.

However, if your neighbour’s brother’s cousin has built your website for free, you might want to check it, just to be on the safe side.

SOLUTION

Noindex tags tell Google that you don’t want it to crawl specific pages, so these ones will never show up as a search result, no matter what you type. You can use tools like Ahrefs to find them and fix them
Most websites have a robots.txt file that tells search engines what they can and cannot crawl. If you’ve added some pages to it by mistake, that’s why your website isn’t showing on Google for them. Just go back to your Search Console account, look for the Coverage report, and see if there’s any ‘submitted URL blocked by robots.txt’ error (hopefully not! I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you)

4. Your website has been penalised by this search engine

Stressed businesswoman wondering why her website isn't showing up on Google

Once again, this is extremely rare, but… better safe than sorry!

If you’ve annoyed Google by spamming people or using dodgy practices that go against its terms of service (like buying backlinks), this touchy search engine miiiiiiiiight have done one of these things to your website:

Deindexed: your domain has been banned (aka removed)
Penalised: it exists but it can’t be found via direct queries
Sandboxed: your organic traffic just drops

SOLUTION

Check your Google Search Console account: if you find a notice that mentions one of these three terms, it will also tell you the reason behind it (hint hint: that’s what you must fix).

5. It’s too slow

Business owner waiting for a slow website to load

Slow websites have two strongly opinionated haters:

Google (its recommended loading speed is 2 seconds) (3)
Your audience: most studies show that around 53% of mobile users leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load

If yours is fairly slow, that’s probably why your website isn’t showing on Google.

After all, this search engine is clever: it knows that slow websites annoy its users, so it’s simply going to favour faster ones.

SOLUTION

Run a Pingdom or Google speed test and implement the tips that you will receive within the report.

6. It’s not optimised for phones

Custome looking at a website that has shown up on Google using their phone

Around one in two website visitors comes from phones (4). Is your small business website mobile friendly?

For example, if it involves static pages that force mobile users to zoom in just to read the text or buttons that are too large to click on with a thumb, it’s clearly not.

SOLUTION

Run a mobile-friendly test and fix the mistakes that will flag up.

7. It results in poor UX overall

UX plans to help a website show on Google

If Google realises that your current website visitors aren’t having a good time, it isn’t going to show it to many more. #Soz

What do I mean by that?

Poor UX (user experience) can take different forms, but, for example, it can involve difficult navigation (dozens of pages linked in the main menu), videos that start playing automatically, long dropdowns in forms, etc.

SOLUTION

Consider getting honest feedback from friends or, even better, your target audience by asking them to navigate your website on their own.

You should also test your UX with a tool like Fivesecondtest, Optimizely, Crazy Egg, or UX Check.

8. It lacks authority and backlinks

Business owern coming up with a plan to attract more backlinks and help their website show up on Google

Here’s where things start to get trickier, but nothing that the right strategy (and patience) can’t fix.

Basically, Google’s algorithm takes PageRank into account.

Some of the main factors behind it are links, both internal (from one page of your website to another) and external (from a different website to a page on yours).

SOLUTION
Add relevant internal links whenever possible. For example, if you mention your eco-friendly ethos on your homepage or in a blog post, link to your Sustainability page.

As for external links, I’ll be honest: they won’t happen overnight. Even more honest? Nobody wants to link to your About page.

As well as guest posting, a good strategy to attract external links is to blog on your business website and share valuable information that other websites or blogs are more likely to link to.

(Spoiler alert: not having a blog is another HUGE reasons why your website isn’t showing on Google, but we’ll look into it properly before the end of this article.)

9. It doesn’t look trustworthy to Google

Suspicious characters as a metaphor for when google doesn't trust a new website

Would you send your friend into a shop that looks pitch black and where the employees are staring at all the customers in an intimidating way? Probably not, and neither would Google.

If your business website doesn’t look trustworthy, it’s not going to rank very high.

SOLUTION

Just like you’d hold up your hand to get a dog to smell you first, some of the things you can do to get Google to trust you are:

Using an SSL certificate
Adding social proof like happy testimonials
Being transparent with your policies
Including your Ts&Cs
Linking to your socials
Collecting good reviews on Google and online

10. Your website pages are too short

Business owner adding text to their website pages

If a friend of yours told you that they wanted to learn more about Iceland, would you give them a four-page flyer or a two-hundred-page guide?

Likewise, Google rarely trusts a short 60-word page to have enough value for its users.

SOLUTION

300 words is considered to be the minimum for SEO (5), at least when it comes to website pages.

Invest in website copywriting services to obtain fresh new copy that reaches that threshold and, most importantly, packs it full of value.

And don’t forget that context is just as important as content!

If you have a pizza restaurant in Liverpool but your 600-word homepage doesn’t actually mention terms like ‘pizza restaurant in Liverpool’, ‘Liverpool pizzeria’, or ‘best pizza in Liverpool’, both humans and search engines will struggle to figure out what you do.

11. You have duplicate content

If, for whatever reason, you repeat a good chunk of your text across different pages, it means you’ve created duplicate content… and Google doesn’t like that.

Same if you’ve copied long bodies of text that you’ve found on someone else’s website.

Search engines want your pages to be UNIQUE!

SOLUTION

Start posting unique content only.

If you fear you already have some duplicate content, run a test to double-check and fix it.

12. You haven’t taken on-page SEO into account...

Screenshot of a website not showing up on google because of poor SEO

Techniques like attracting backlinks or improving your website’s speed are considered off-page SEO.

However, if your website isn’t showing on Google, you shouldn’t forget about on-page SEO either: it consists of making sure that every page is optimised for search engines, helping them understand what it’s about.

SOLUTION

Incorporate relevant keywords in all the right spots.

Unless you only sell your services online, an element of local SEO is usually extremely helpful too (for example, keywords like ‘best cafe in Chester’ rather than just ‘cafe’).

13. … or you’ve targeted the wrong keywords

Business owner looking for new keywords to help their website show up on google

Perhaps you have thought of on-page SEO, but you’ve simply used the wrong keywords.

What do I mean by ‘wrong’?

Usually, they’re either too broad and competitive (for example, unless you’re Coca Cola, you’re unlikely to rank for ‘best fizzy drink’) or they don’t match search intent (maybe people who google that keyword are looking for informational content but you’ve used it on a page that sells something).

SOLUTION

Aim for more specific and niche keywords. While they might be searched fewer times per month, they’re actually more relevant to what you sell and to your specific target audience.

When you invest in my copywriting services, I also conduct keyword research to optimise your pages for the right terms.

Send me words that work

14. You haven’t been blogging on your business website

Business owner blogging on their website

If, after going through or fixing the previous points, you’re still wondering ‘why is my website not showing on Google’, then one of the most probable answers is simply that… you haven’t got a blog.

Or, alternatively, you have one, but it’s all about company news.

No, no, NO.

Every business website should have a blog to create valuable industry-related articles that entertain and educate its target audience.

While blogging comes with tons of benefits, lots of them involve search engine optimisation.

So, how does blogging help with SEO (aka how does it help your website show on Google more often)?

Simple:

It provides fresh content, allowing your website to be crawled and indexed more frequently
It results in many more indexed pages (every blog post is a new webpage!)
It gives you more chances to rank since every article should target a different keyword
It offers opportunities for internal links
It attracts an average of 97% more external links (6)
Blog posts are shareable, helping you reach more people via social media and amplifying other SEO benefits indirectly

SOLUTION

Start blogging on your small business website!

If you want to set yourself up for success (and why wouldn’t you?) but don’t know where to start or haven’t got time to write the right SEO-friendly articles for your audience:

check out my blog writing services! I’ll research and write aaaaaaall the content for you, so you can just sit back and enjoy the results

Put my blog on auto-pilot

So, ‘why is my website not showing on Google?’

As we’ve seen, there are several reasons, but the best thing is... they’re all fixable (although you will still have to be patient to see the results).

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