Local SEO
Either Google has not indexed your site or something else ranks better. One search tells you which, and the fix for each is completely different.
If your website is not showing on Google, there are only really two possibilities: Google does not know your pages exist, or it knows and has decided something else answers the question better. They look identical from where you are sitting, and the fix for each is completely different.
This is how to tell which one you have, in about ten minutes, and what to do about it.
Type this into Google, with your own address and no space after the colon:
site:yourbusiness.co.uk
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| No results at all | Google has not indexed your site. This is a technical problem and it is usually quick to fix |
| Some pages, not the one you want | That page is blocked, too new, or Google sees it as a duplicate |
| All your pages listed | You are indexed. This is a ranking problem, not an indexing one |
Almost everyone who says “we are not on Google” is in the third group. Being indexed and being visible are not the same thing.
Work through these in order. The first two account for most cases we see.
This is the single most common cause, and the most frustrating, because the site looks perfect to you.
WordPress has a setting called “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. It is switched on for building a site and it is supposed to be switched off at launch. It frequently is not. In WordPress it is under Settings, then Reading.
The same thing happens when a staging site goes live with its crawler block still attached. If you have recently rebuilt or moved your site, check this before anything else. It is on our website migration checklist for exactly that reason. Our guide to website redesign SEO covers the other ways a rebuild can cost you rankings.
A brand new site takes days to a few weeks to appear. There is nothing wrong and nothing to fix. Submit it and be patient.
Set up Google Search Console, verify your site, and submit your sitemap. It is free, it takes about fifteen minutes, and it is the only way to see what Google actually thinks of your site rather than guessing.
This is the real situation for most businesses, and it is a harder problem than a switch in a settings panel.
Start here, because it changes the diagnosis. If you search your exact business name and you are not first, you likely have a name clash with a bigger or older business. If you are first, then you are visible for your name, and what you actually mean is you are not showing for the thing you sell.
“Web design” returns national results. “Web design Ashford” returns local ones. A small local business is competing for the second and will almost never appear for the first. Check the terms a customer would really use, with the place attached.
Your own browser flatters you. It knows your site, and your history nudges it up the page. Check in a private window, and ideally on mobile data rather than office wifi, before concluding anything.
A page titled “Services” that lists eight things will lose to a page about the one thing somebody searched for. One page per service, each with enough on it to be useful, does more than any technical tweak. That is largely a writing job, covered in how to write website content.
This is the uncomfortable one, and for most small sites it is the real answer. Google treats links from other websites as votes. A new site with no links is competing against businesses that have been collecting them for a decade. No amount of on-page work substitutes for that, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
Indexing problems fix in days once the block is removed. Ranking problems take months, and anyone promising otherwise is either lucky or lying. A realistic expectation for a small site doing the right things is movement in eight to twelve weeks and meaningful change in six months.
Speed and mobile usability feed into this too, and both are worth checking while you wait. See improving WordPress site speed and making a website mobile friendly.
If you are a trade business, the local side matters more than anything on this page. See web design for tradesmen.
This is the order we work through when somebody rings us saying they cannot find their site, which happens most weeks. The indexing setting being left on is genuinely the most common single cause, and it is worth checking first because it costs nothing and fixes everything.
We have deliberately not promised timescales we cannot control. Rankings are Google’s decision, not ours.
For a sense of what realistic looks like rather than what is advertised: Kent Smart Recycling, a scrap metal collection business in Maidstone, took 115 clicks from 4,550 impressions over 28 days this September, across 664 different searches. They rank on page one for “scrap yard near me” and “scrap metal collection maidstone”.
Two things worth taking from that. It took months rather than weeks. And their site wide average position reads 10, which sounds poor until you look at which searches sit where. Averages across hundreds of queries tell you very little. The handful of terms that actually bring work in are what to measure.
Search site:yourbusiness.co.uk first. Nothing means you are blocked or too new, and that is usually a setting. Everything means you are indexed and the problem is competition, which is a content and links problem rather than a technical one. Set up Search Console either way, because it replaces guessing with facts.
If you would rather someone looked properly, send us your address and we will tell you which of the two you have and what it would take, including if the answer is that you do not need us. Our website audit checklist covers the rest of what is worth checking, and if you are in Kent specifically, getting found on Google in Kent goes further on the local side.
Either Google has not indexed it, or it has and something else ranks better. Search site:yourbusiness.co.uk to tell which. No results means an indexing problem, usually a blocked crawler setting. Results but no visibility means a competition problem, which takes months rather than minutes.
Type site: followed immediately by your domain into Google, with no space. If your pages are listed, you are indexed. If nothing comes back, Google does not know your site exists, which is usually a setting blocking crawlers rather than anything complicated.
Check Settings then Reading for a box called "Discourage search engines from indexing this site". It is switched on while a site is being built and is supposed to be switched off at launch. It frequently is not. This is the most common single cause we see.
A new site usually appears within days to a few weeks once Google knows it exists. Submitting a sitemap through Search Console speeds that up. Ranking well for competitive terms is a different matter and realistically takes months.
Usually because you are searching a term you cannot realistically win, searching without a location, or checking in a browser that knows your site. Try a private window, add your town to the search, and use the words a customer would actually type.
For anything competitive, yes. Google treats links from other websites as votes, and a new site with none is competing against businesses that have collected them for years. On-page work matters but does not substitute for it. Start with suppliers, trade bodies and local listings.
Get found
We build local SEO into every site so the right customers find you on Google.
A redesign only hurts Google rankings when page addresses, content or technical basics change carelessly. Here is what to keep, redirect and…
David Ellis · 4 Oct 2026
SEO web design means building a website search engines can find, read, and rank. Here is how structure, speed, mobile and content…
David Ellis · 4 Oct 2026
The practical steps that get a Kent business found when people nearby search for what you sell, from Google Business Profile to…
David Ellis · 28 Sep 2026
