You’ve followed the basic SEO steps, you’ve used the right type of keywords, and you are posting on your business’s blog. So why isn’t your website showing on Google the way you want it to?
Whether your pages don’t show up at all or they are buried in the wasteland that’s page two and more of SERP (search engine results page), it can be incredibly frustrating. After all, you’ve worked hard to build a user-friendly website/page/blog only to be completely ignored by Google.
If you are in this position, here are a few tips and tricks you can try to get out of this digital ditch.
#1: Look Out for Common Mistakes
You don’t have to be a total online marketing noob to make mistakes that can impact your site’s position in SERP.
For instance, your site’s loading speed can make the difference between showing up on the first page or not showing up at all because Google uses it as a factor when calculating the overall health of your pages.
Luckily, you can check your page loading time and other factors that influence speed for free, using the PageSpeed Insights tool (free) or any others that fit your needs.
#2: Get Creative with Your Campaigns
SEO is great, but it’s just the first step in your online marketing efforts. You should also try some out-of-the-box promotion ideas such as collaborations with relevant influencers, collaborations with brands in a similar niche, and social media presence.
In today’s day and age, social media is your friend, if you know how to use it. A big part of online users get their information from platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, so you have an unprecedented opportunity to talk directly with your target audience.
#3: Be Patient: Your Website Will Typically Rank Higher Over Time
Google needs to index your website(s), individual page(s), and blog post(s) before it knows where to place it in its world. For this, it will send tiny robots called crawlers to check your content and make a sense of who you are addressing, how, and why.
This process can take from a few hours to a few days, depending on your web host, type of content, and other factors. If it’s an entirely new site, it may take longer; also, check to make sure you haven’t blocked the Googlebot crawler in your robots.txt.
In general, time is an important factor for Google first page ranking. That’s because Google needs to figure out if your content is relevant and valuable to users, trustworthy, and well-intended. So be patient and monitor your page(s)’s progress for at least five months before you start worrying things don’t go well.
#4: Technical Issues
If you are not familiar with how websites work, it’s best to find a reliable web developer who can build the initial structure for you. However, many site owners prefer to save money and use a website builder designed for non-technical people to create their own sites and e-commerce stores.
This is not necessarily a bad option, but if you are a complete beginner in the field, it’s easy to ignore technical issues that either block Google’s crawlers or keep your website at the bottom of the internet.
If you think you did everything you could to get your pages to go up in SERPs and nothing changes, it’s best to hire a specialist who can check your code and test for errors. It may be a bit of a cost, but it’s worth it if you want to get things going.
Key Takeaways
The main reasons your website isn’t showing up on Google (as all or as expected) are technical issues, basic mistakes (SEO or technical), or a general lack of involvement with the target audience. Of course, there are other factors involved, so if you feel you’ve run out of ideas, it’s best to have your website checked by a developer.
