Can customers find you on Google? Five checks for your website

Who this is for

You have a website, or a new one is about to go live, and you want to know whether a customer searching for what you do can actually find you. This guide is a short list to run through yourself. Nobody can promise a position on the results page, and anyone who does is guessing. What you can do is remove the mistakes that keep a good site invisible and give Google clear, accurate information.

You do not need technical knowledge for most of these checks. Some may need whoever built the site.

The five checks

1. Search for yourself. Type your business name into Google, then what you do plus your town, for example “bakery” and the name of your town. Do you appear? Then open Search Console (free, and you prove you own the site) and use the URL Inspection tool on your home page and one inner page. It tells you whether Google knows the page and, if not, why. A new site can take time to appear, so check again after a few days.

2. Make sure the site is not hidden. Sites are often built with a setting that asks search engines to stay away, and it is left on at launch. Google supports a noindex rule, as a tag in the page or as an HTTP header, to keep a page out of results (how it works). Ask whoever built the site to confirm that no page you want found carries it. One more point: a robots.txt file is not a way to hide a page, because a page it blocks can still appear in results if other sites link to it (robots.txt guide).

3. Give every page its own title and description. The title is the headline of your search result. Google asks for titles that are unique to the page, clear and concise, and that describe what the page offers, for example your business name, what you do and where (title links). “Home” on every page is the typical mistake. Write a short description for each page too, since it can be used as the text under the title.

4. Complete your Google Business Profile. When someone searches for a business near them, Google shows local results in Maps and Search. Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up (local ranking tips). Fill in your category, services, address, opening hours, phone number and website, and keep name, address and phone identical to what your website says. Add real photos of your work or place.

5. Build prominence honestly. Google describes local ranking with three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. Prominence depends partly on how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have; more reviews and positive ratings can help. Ask satisfied customers for a review, reply to every review politely, and get listed on websites that matter in your trade or region. Do not buy reviews or links: it can harm you more than it helps.

A two-minute self-check

• Search your business name and one phrase like “what you do + town”: do you see your site and your profile?
• Open your home page in Search Console’s URL Inspection: does Google know it?
• Look at the browser tab of three different pages: are the titles different and meaningful?
• Open your Business Profile: are hours, phone and address correct and the same as on the site?
• Count your reviews: have you replied to the latest ones?

When to get help

Ask someone experienced if:

• Google does not show your pages weeks after launch and you cannot see why
• you moved the site and old addresses lost their place in results
• you run several locations or languages and the profiles and pages do not match
• you want the whole list checked by a second pair of eyes

This is part of the launch check too. We go through it with you in a free 30-minute video call: book a call.