If you build it, they will come. Right? Unfortunately, this can be the farthest thing from the truth when it comes to building a website. After a website is created, the first thing many people do is search for it. You jump on Google, type in your business name and… nothing. You sit there and wonder, why can’t I find my business on Google? This must be a mistake.
If this is you, don’t worry. It’s fixable! Chances are you didn’t optimize your website for search. In other words, you didn’t incorporate SEO strategies. Not sure what search engine optimization is? Start here with our simple guide to SEO for beginners.
If you own a local business, these five things are especially important to make sure your customers can find your business online, whether that be a search engine like Google or even a maps page. So let’s dive into it!
Why can’t I find my business on Google? Here’s why!
1. You don’t have a Google My Business account
It’s exactly as it sounds. Google My Business, also known as GMB, is what allows your customers to easily google your business. Especially if you have a local service or offering. Think about how many times you may Google “[fill in the blank] near me”. With a GMB account, Google understands where you are located and can showcase you as a relevant business to that search.
Don’t have an account? The good news is, it is extremely easy to create an account! In fact, go ahead and do it right now. Click here to get started and follow these steps:
- Create an account by logging into your Google account
- Follow the prompts and enter in your business information (name, location, etc.)
- Verify your business – this is typically done via postcard
- Optimize your listing with keywords and images
- Snag your first review – more on this in reason number 4
Finally, don’t forget that Google isn’t the only search engine. Check out this recent post on our Instagram. You may want to consider creating a Bings Places or Yahoo Local account as well.
2. Your contact information isn’t displayed on your website
When building a website, we often focus on our home page and services or product offerings. The contact page ends up being forgotten about or completely undervalued. One of the reasons why you can’t find your business on Google might be because you simply forgot to create this page.
Your contact page is a digital business card. It’s where potential customers and clients take action. It’s where a relationship begins. And that is exactly why it’s so important. So what should you include on this page?
First, before you even start designing this page, think mobile first! In today’s society more people will find you on their smartphones than with a desktop computer, so make sure this page is easy to navigate on your mobile device.
- Your company’s name written in full live text (not embedded over an image or in a logo, Google can’t read that!)
- A location or address
- Contact information through an embedded form or by simply sharing your email or phone number
- Finally, include links to FAQs or blog posts that might speak to your services, offerings or products
Keep it simple and inviting. Don’t scare your audience away with too many questions or confuse them with too much content. And finally, once your contact page is ready, share it! The more traffic you drive to this page, the more authority your website will gain with Google.
3. Your site isn’t optimized for mobile
Like we mentioned above, mobile is the future of online browsing. In the past year, 60% of our website traffic comes from a mobile device, compared to 37% on desktop. Curious where you stand? We encourage you to pop into Google Analytics and follow this path:
Audience > Mobile > Overview
Did you know you can even view this by device – iPhone vs. Android for example- by clicking on “device” under mobile. Google Analytics is amazing folks!
Not sure where to start? Here are some quick and easy ways to optimize your website for mobile:
- Double check your user experience. Pop onto your website from your phone. Do you enjoy the browsing experience? If not, chances are your audience doesn’t either. User experience is a huge part of Google’s algorithm and without it, you won’t rank well because your audience will bounce right off that page.
- Pagespeed: Did you know that if your page takes longer than 3 seconds to load you’ve lost 53% of mobile users. Dang! Go here to see how long it takes for your site to load and make sure to view both mobile and desktop.
- Image Size: If your page takes too long to load, chances are your images aren’t optimized for the web. In other words they are too large. If this is the case, our favorite two sites to compress images are Compress JPEG and Compress PNG.
4. You don’t have any customer testimonials or reviews
Let’s jump back to your GMB account. This is our go to resource in order to collect customer reviews and testimonials. Did you know that 78% of consumers trust online reviews as much as recommendations from friends and family? Reviews are an extremely powerful local SEO tool and your Google My Business account is the perfect place to gather those reviews.
Once you’ve created your account, you click “request reviews” and you’ll get a link for your customers to leave a review. It’s that simple! How do reviews help you rank higher online? A consistent stream of reviews tells Google that you are an active business and will therefore help you rank higher than those companies that aren’t sourcing any reviews. That is right, finding your business on Google just got a whole lot easier by letting your customers do the hard work for you.
5. You don’t have any trustworthy backlinks
Backlinks, also known as inbound links, are a massive topic that we cannot wait to chat more about. These are links on someone else’s website that drive traffic to your website. But before we start to write oodles of blog posts on this topic, here is what you should know. These links are one of the most important ranking factors and something you should definitely prioritize in 2021.
Why? Because first, these links give Google a better understanding of what you have to offer. Second, they give you authority on a specific topic or topics. And third, they drive traffic to your website. How about we say this in Instagram terminology… the right backlink might just make you viral!
Backlink Strategy
So here are three ways you can start to ideate on how to get backlinks:
- Guest blog posting
- Link rounds ups or lists of business and offerings in your industry
- Testimonials through third party websites like Yelp or Etsy
We have so much more to share on how to increase backlinks to your website. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and Facebook to hear more about our link building tips and strategies. We may even be launching a link building challenge in the near future!
There you have it 5 ways to remove the question ‘why can’t I find my business on Google’ from your vocabulary. These 5 reasons are now your tips to improve your local SEO rankings.
If you are ready to take the next step in learning how to optimize your website for SEO, then we have just the course for you. The Beginners Guide to SEO is made for creative entrepreneurs who are ready to learn SEO and optimize their website through easy to understand language, tutorials and step by step instructions. See you in there!
This is such a good post! As a copywriter who also works with SEO often, I find that people ALWAYS forget to set up Google My Business, so I’m glad its your #1 tip. 🙂
So happy you agree! It’s such a simple tool that can be implemented in minutes (aside from waiting for your confirmation postcard ?)