Why Your Business Doesn’t Show Up on Google: An Ohio Valley Checklist

“We’re not on Google.” I hear it every week, usually from an owner with a real business, a working phone and years of happy customers. They search for what they do, in the town where they do it, and somebody else comes up.

There is almost always a reason, and it is usually one of nine. This is the checklist we run when someone in the Ohio Valley asks us why they can’t be found. Most of it you can check yourself this afternoon.

Is your website in Google at all?

Start here, because it takes ten seconds. Search site:yourbusiness.com, with your own domain. If nothing comes back, Google hasn’t indexed your site, and nothing else on this list matters until that is fixed.

The usual cause is a setting nobody turned off: a noindex tag left over from when the site was being built, or a robots.txt rule that blocks crawlers. Google Search Console’s Page indexing report shows which of your pages are indexed and why the others aren’t. Google’s own guidance is that most sites have a few unindexed pages, but every important page should be indexed.

Do you have a Google Business Profile, and is it verified?

For “near me” searches, the map and the three businesses under it come from Google Business Profiles, not websites. No profile, no map pack. And if you have one but never verified it, Google says verification tells it you are authorized to represent the business, so the profile is more likely to show up in search results (Google).

How that box works, and how Google picks the three, is in What Is the Google Map Pack, and How Do You Get Into It?

Is your profile complete and accurate?

Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and that a profile with inaccurate information might not show up for relevant searches in your area (Google). Complete means the right categories, every service you offer, your hours (holiday hours too), your service area and real photos of your work.

Do your name, address and phone match everywhere?

Your business is listed on dozens of sites you never signed up for: map apps, directories, data companies. When one says “Suite 502” and another doesn’t, or an old phone number is still out there, Google has two versions of you to choose between. Pick one exact version of your name, address and phone, and make every listing match it.

Does your website say what you do, and where?

A homepage that says “Quality service since 1998” does not tell Google that you replace windows in Steubenville. Google needs a page for each core service, the towns you serve named on those pages, and LocalBusiness structured data, which is how you tell Google your hours, address and other details in a format it reads directly (Google).

That is the work behind Creegan’s Windows Plus, which ranks #1 on Google for 27 core searches, including “window installation” and “window replacement” (Search Console, last three months).

Is your site fast on a phone?

Most local searches happen on a phone, often in a hurry, and a slow page loses the call before it starts. Google measures how quickly pages respond with Interaction to Next Paint, and a page counts as good when it is 200 milliseconds or less (web.dev). The sites we build load in under two seconds on average.

Are you getting reviews, and answering them?

Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help a business’s local ranking, and that replying to reviews shows customers you value their feedback (Google). The businesses beating you in the map pack usually have more recent reviews than you do. Ask every happy customer right after the job, and reply to every review, good or bad.

Did a redesign or a new domain cost you your rankings?

If your traffic fell off a cliff after a new website went live, the old pages probably disappeared without redirects. Google’s guidance for a site move is to map every old URL to its new one and use permanent, server-side redirects such as a 301. It also says rankings can fluctuate while Google recrawls, and that a small to medium-sized site can take a few weeks for most pages to move (Google).

Done properly, a move can help. Superior Urgent & Primary Care more than doubled its search clicks after a fast domain relaunch.

Are you trying to rank for the right searches?

Ranking for your own business name is easy, because nobody else has it. The searches that bring new customers are the service and the town: “roof repair Wintersville,” “insurance agent Steubenville.” Search Console shows the exact searches you already appear for and where you rank, which tells you which pages to build next.

Voto Manufacturers Sales, a Steubenville industrial distributor, moved from an average Google position of 27.9 to 6.5, page 3 to page 1, after a full rebuild of its brand, site and search.

What should you fix first?

1. Make sure Google can index the site at all.
2. Claim, verify and complete your Google Business Profile.
3. Make your name, address and phone match everywhere.
4. Give every core service its own page, with the towns you serve and LocalBusiness structured data.
5. Start asking for reviews, and answer every one.
6. Get the site fast on a phone, and redirect any old pages that went missing.

If you would rather have us run the list for you, send us your website and we will show you what is holding it back: Show Me What’s Holding My Site Back.