First: does Google know your website exists?
Go to Google and type site: followed by your web address, with no spaces, for example site:yourbusiness.co.uk. This lists every page of your website that Google has saved.
- Nothing comes up: Google hasn’t indexed your website at all. Work through the first four reasons below.
- Your pages come up: Google knows about your site, it just isn’t ranking it for the searches you tried. Skip to showing for your name but not your services.
The most common reasons, and how to fix them
| Reason | How to tell | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| It’s brand new | The site went live in the last few weeks and the site: search shows nothing. | Add it to Google Search Console and submit your sitemap. New sites usually appear within days to a few weeks. |
| Search engines are told to stay away | In WordPress, Settings → Reading has “Discourage search engines” ticked. Other platforms have a similar “hide from search engines” setting. | Untick it. It’s often left on by mistake after a website is built. |
| A page is set to “noindex” | Search Console’s URL inspection says “Excluded by noindex tag”. | Switch the page back to “index” in your SEO plugin or page settings. |
| robots.txt blocks Google | Open yourbusiness.co.uk/robots.txt. A line saying Disallow: / under User-agent: * blocks everything. | Remove that line, or ask whoever runs your hosting to. |
| No sitemap | Search Console shows no sitemap, or yourbusiness.co.uk/sitemap.xml doesn’t load. | Most SEO plugins create one for you. Submit it in Search Console under Sitemaps. |
| The pages don’t say what you do and where | The site appears for your business name, but not for “electrician in Dudley”. | Page titles, headings and words that match how customers search, plus a page for each main service. |
| No Google Business Profile | You’re missing from the map results that appear above the websites. | Create and verify a free Google Business Profile, then ask happy customers for reviews. |
How to check it all in five minutes
- Run the site: search above, so you know whether you’re indexed at all.
- Open Google Search Console (it’s free) and add your website if it isn’t there. Your web designer or hosting company can help with the verification step.
- Use URL inspection on your homepage. It tells you in plain words whether the page is on Google and, if not, why.
- Check Sitemaps in Search Console. If none is listed, submit yours.
- Check your Google Business Profile by searching your business name on Google Maps.
Run the free check
Showing for your name, but not for your services?
This is the most common situation for small businesses, and my guide on how to get your website to the top of Google covers it in full. Google has your website, but when someone searches “roofer near me” or “hairdresser in Smethwick”, other businesses come up instead. Google is choosing between dozens of businesses, so it picks the ones that most clearly match the search and that it trusts most.
Make it obvious what you do and where
Your homepage title and main heading should name your service and your area, in the words customers use. One page per main service helps, and so do pages for the towns you cover, as long as each one says something genuinely useful about working there.
Win the map results
For local searches, the map listings sit above the normal results. They’re driven by your Google Business Profile: the right categories, your services and areas, photos and, above all, reviews. A steady trickle of genuine Google reviews makes a real difference.
Be fast on phones
Most local searches happen on a phone. A slow website loses visitors before it loads, and Google takes speed into account. Oversized photos and videos are the usual cause.
What about ChatGPT and other AI assistants?
More people now ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot to recommend a business. Those assistants mostly find businesses through Google and Bing, so if you’re not on Google, you’re unlikely to be recommended by AI either. On top of that, AI tools look for websites that clearly state who you are, where you work and what you charge, ideally in structured data they can read.
What I did on my own website
When I rebuilt this website, I followed the same steps. I added it to Google Search Console, submitted the sitemap, sent new pages to Bing through IndexNow, fixed old addresses that were showing as “page not found”, gave every page a clear title and description, and built a page for each service and each area I cover. I also set up my Google Business Profile as a service-area business, since I work from home.
Today the site scores 100/100 for Google and 96/100 for AI on my own check, and Google’s AI answers name it when people search for website costs in Oldbury. It took a few weeks of patience after the fixes, which is normal.
When you don’t need me
If your website is brand new, or the problem is a ticked “discourage search engines” box, you can fix it yourself in minutes using the steps above. Submit your sitemap, request indexing in Search Console, and give it a couple of weeks.
If you’re indexed but still not showing for your services, or you’d rather not dig through Search Console yourself, that’s the work I do: local SEO for small businesses, at a fixed price from your free check report.
Written by Ben Brailsford-Chambers, the web designer behind Clever Rabbit in Oldbury. Last updated 24 October 2026. More guides