5 Reasons why you’re not showing up on Google & how to fix it
Whether you’ve launched a new website or it’s been live for a while, realising that you can’t find your website on Google can be distressing, annoying and confusing, especially if you know your customers are searching for products and services like yours on Google.
In today's digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for any business or individual looking to reach their target audience, and if your website is not showing up on Google, it's as if your online presence does not exist.
There could be various reasons why your website is not showing up on Google's search results, and understanding these reasons is crucial.
Here are 5 reasons why you’re not showing up on Google.
You’re not showing up on Google because you have a brand-new website
You've gone live and then Googled your business name, but surprise, your website doesn’t appear. If you have a brand-new website, it's understandable that it may not immediately appear on Google's search results.
This is because Google’s crawlers take time to crawl and index new websites, generally about every 2-3 weeks, so it can take days, weeks or months to start appearing.
This doesn’t mean that people can’t visit your website; it just means that if they search for it on Google, it won’t appear in the search results. That’s why it’s important to be on social media and build brand awareness while you wait for Google to catch up.
How to fix it - Submit your sitemap to Google
A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website, and submitting it to Google can help speed up the indexing process. You can submit your sitemap through Google Search Console.
Here are the steps to follow to submit your site to Google Search Console:
Go to the Google Search Console website and sign in using your Google account.
Once you've signed in, click on the "Add a property" button.
Enter your website URL in the provided field and click the "Add" button.
You will be prompted to verify ownership of your website. Choose the verification method that works best for you (e.g., adding an HTML file to your website, adding a meta tag to your website's HTML, etc.).
Follow the instructions provided for your chosen verification method.
Once you've successfully verified ownership of your website, you'll be taken to the Google Search Console dashboard for your website.
From here, you can submit your sitemap to Google by clicking on the "Sitemaps" option in the left-hand menu and then clicking the "Add/Test Sitemap" button. Enter the URL of your sitemap (e.g., https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml) and click "Submit."
Google will now start crawling and indexing your website, and you can track your website's performance and SEO efforts through the Google Search Console dashboard.
You’re not showing up on Google because Google can’t crawl your website
Who knew one little piece of code could cause so many problems!
For Google to add your website to its search results, its crawlers must be able to access it. Sometimes, unbeknownst to you, a piece of code in the back end of your website, called a “noindex” tag, could be preventing Google crawlers from crawling your site.
A "noindex" tag is an HTML tag that instructs search engines not to index a specific page or set of pages on a website. When a page has a noindex tag, it tells search engines not to include that page in their search results pages (SERPs).
There are several reasons why a website owner may want to use a noindex tag. For example:
Duplicate content: If you have multiple pages on your website that contain identical or similar content, using a noindex tag on some of those pages can help prevent search engines from penalising your website for duplicate content.
Confidential information: If you have pages on your website that contain sensitive or confidential information that you don't want to be publicly available, using a noindex tag can help prevent those pages from appearing in search engine results.
Temporarily unavailable pages: If you have pages on your website that are temporarily unavailable (e.g., under construction), using a noindex tag can help prevent those pages from appearing in search engine results until they are ready.
But you don’t want a “noindex” tag on your website when you’re trying to have it crawled by Google.
How to fix it - Remove the “noindex” tag
To check if your website has a noindex tag, you can use Google Search Console or a third-party SEO tool. Here are the steps to follow:
Using Google Search Console:
Log in to your Google Search Console account.
Select your website property from the dashboard.
Click on the "Coverage" report in the left-hand menu.
Scroll down to the list of excluded URLs and look for any URLs with a "noindex" tag.
Using a third-party SEO tool:
Choose a third-party SEO tool that provides a "noindex checker" feature. Some popular options include SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz.
Enter your website's URL into the tool and run the analysis.
Look for any URLs that have a "noindex" tag.
If you find that your website has a noindex tag that you want to remove, here are the steps to follow:
Access the page's HTML code.
Locate the meta robots tag that includes the noindex directive: <meta name="robots" content="noindex">
Remove the "noindex" directive from the content attribute, so the tag now looks like this: <meta name="robots" content="">
Save the changes to the page's HTML code.
Use Google Search Console to request a re-index of the updated page or wait for Google to crawl and index the page again.
Once you've removed the noindex tag and requested a re-index, Google should start indexing the page normally and include it in their search results if it meets their indexing criteria.
You’re not showing up on Google because you’re not using the right keywords on your website
Keywords are the foundation of your website. And just like the foundations of a house, you can do all the renovating you want, but if your foundations aren't good, your house will eventually collapse.
When you haven’t done proper keyword research and don't target the right keywords on your website, it can significantly negatively impact your website's visibility and traffic from Google.
As Google uses keywords to gauge what your website content is about and to determine in what searches your website appears for, not having the right ones means you’re not showing up for the customers that need you.
Even if you rank for some keywords, they may not be the ones your target audience is searching for. This can result in low-quality traffic to your website, with visitors who are not interested in your content or products.
How to fix it - Perform keyword research
Before you can start targeting keywords, you need to define your website's goals. What do you want visitors to do on your website? Are you trying to sell products, generate leads, or provide information? Your website's goals will help you determine the right keywords to target.
Use a keyword research tool, such as SEMrush or SE Ranking, to identify keywords that are relevant to your website's content and goals. Ideally, look for keywords with a high search volume and low competition.
Once you have identified your target keywords, optimise your website's content, meta tags, and URLs for those keywords. Make sure to use your target keywords naturally in your content and avoid keyword stuffing, which can hurt your website's rankings.
Keep track of your website's rankings and traffic for your target keywords and adjust your strategy as needed. Continuously updating and optimising your website's content and keywords can help improve your website's visibility and attract more high-quality traffic.
You’re not showing up on Google because there isn’t enough quality content on your website
Google wants to provide searchers with the most relevant, informative and trustworthy websites. If your site doesn’t have a lot of content or has low-quality content, Google will show other websites over yours.
How to fix it - Write great content, consistently
A blog is a great way to get more keywords onto your website, naturally!
A blog is the easiest way to add great content to your website; creating blog content has many benefits.
Shows authority to new and existing customers.
Gives people a reason to bookmark, connect with and re-visit your website.
Adds more keywords to your website.
Gives Google a reason to re-crawl your website.
Gives you content for social media, emails, etc
Helps customers convert.
But you don’t want to blog for the sake of blogging. Your blogs should be helpful, informative, entertaining, factual and engaging. Ideally, you would have a content strategy in place.
Google was designed to provide users with the most up-to-date and relevant information for their search queries. This means that websites that regularly update their content and provide fresh, relevant information to their users may be favoured by Google and may rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, it's important to note that simply publishing new content on a regular basis doesn't guarantee higher rankings or more traffic. The quality and relevance of your content are also important factors that Google considers when ranking websites. So no grammatical errors, incorrect facts or overreliance on AI, please!
In addition to creating fresh content, it's also important to update and optimise your existing content regularly. This can help ensure that your website's content is always relevant and up-to-date, improving your website's rankings and attracting more traffic over time.
So, try and add to your blog at least once a month.
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