First, check what you’re searching
Search results are personal and local. Searching from your shop shows different results from searching across town. Search your exact business name first: if you appear for that, Google knows you exist, and the question is ranking, not visibility. Use a private browser window to reduce the effect of your own history.
On Google Maps
- Is your Business Profile verified?Unverified profiles may not show at all. Check in your profile manager.
- Is it suspended or marked closed?A suspended profile disappears; a profile marked temporarily or permanently closed shows less or not at all.
- Is the category right?If your primary category is “Contractor” when people search for “roofer”, you’ll miss those searches.
- Are you too far away?Distance from the searcher is one of the three things Google weighs for local results. A business on the edge of town shows less for searches made across town. See what decides your Google Maps ranking.
In the regular results
- Is the site blocking search engines?A “noindex” tag left on from development, or a robots.txt that disallows everything, keeps a site out entirely. Our free website check looks for both.
- Is the site indexed at all?Search site:yourbusiness.com. If nothing comes up, Google hasn’t indexed it. Set up Search Console and submit a sitemap.
- Is there a page for what you’re searching?A home page that lists twenty services won’t rank for each of them. Each important service needs its own page.
- Is it new?A brand-new domain takes time. See how long SEO takes.
- Has something gone wrong?Search Console’s Security issues and Manual actions reports will say if Google found a hack or penalized the site.
Written by Nikita Huttenlocher, founder and lead engineer at Huttenlocher Technologies, a web design and software company in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.