“Why isn’t my business ranking in Google?” is possibly one of the most asked, if not THE most asked question I get from new clients.

Normally because they are desperate to drive traffic to their website in order to grow their business.

Does this sound familiar to you? Have you spent money on a website for your business?

Or perhaps you have spent time and money on SEO or digital marketing already and yet in spite of this your website just isn’t appearing in the search results.

It doesn’t matter if your small business is a location based business or a business that serves people globally, being found on Google by potential customers will be vital to your website success.

You want your website to be the answer to any search queries that your ideal customer might have, otherwise if they aren’t finding you they are finding your competitor.

Yet, understanding how Google works can seem overwhelming.

So with all that being said, why isn’t your business appearing in the Google search results?

You Haven’t Claimed your Google Business Profile

If you are a business owner with a physical location or one that serves location based clients then you will want to set up your Google business profile as this will help you with your local SEO and it will also help you get found via a google maps search.

So if your business serves local clients it’s important that you claim your Google business profile and optimise it for your business (Google Business Profile used to be known as Google my business)

If you already have a verified Google business prfile and you still aren’t showing up on search or map listings then you have to look over your listing to find any errors that you may have made.

Is you NAP (Name, address, postcode) listed the same way across all platforms and sites it mentioned on (social media, business directories, your own website)

If not then update it so that it’s uniformed across the board as this adds to its legitimacy and increases your chances of ranking better.

Then you want to also make sure that you have reviews on your Google my business listing, that you are building citations and backlinks.

[bctt tweet=”If your business serves local clients it’s important that you claim your Google business profile and optimise it for your business”]

You Haven’t Chosen The Correct Keywords

Another answer to the question “why isn’t my business showing up in Google” is that often you have chosen the wrong keywords for your site.

Keyword research can be a hard topic to get to grips with. What it boils down to is making sure your website is targeting search phrases that your potential clients are searching for.

However, that doesn’t mean you can choose any old keywords that pop into your head. There are things you need to look out for when it comes to choosing your keywords.

You need to make sure enough people are searching for your chosen phrases, that they are not too competitive and that you have fully understood the user intent behind the search phrases.

Once you have got that all sorted then you have to optimise your content for SEO and that brings us to the next common problem when it comes to getting your website to rank in the SERPS and that is your website isn’t optimised.

Your Website Isn’t Optimised For Search

This is probably the most common problem I find new clients have when it comes to understanding why their website just isn’t showing up in search.

Too many small business owners think all they have to do is launch their website and perhaps install an SEO plugin like Yoast and they are good to go and will get rankings straight away.

This is sadly, very rarely the case. The truth is you will need a good SEO strategy Google has hundreds of ranking factors and while it’s impossible to know them all, the most important ones are known and it’s vital your website covers as many of them as possible.

One of the best ways to see how your website is matching up to Google’s ranking factors is to carry out an SEO audit.

This will show up any problems your website has. Like broken links, missing metadata, lack of image optimisation , no internal links etc.

Tools like Semrush can help you identify where your main SEO issues are and then you can set about correcting them.

Sometimes these onsite fixes can be one of the best ways to get quick SEO wins.

So these three points are the most common answers to the questions “why isn’t my business showing up in Google”

Can you see your problems amongst them? Let me know in the comment section below and why not sign up for our SEO newsletter and get FREE SEO tips delivered directly to your inbox each week.