Is your website is not showing up on Google? Here’s how to fix it
So, you’ve set up a website and think it’s pretty good. You’ve read blogs, got creative with content and researched ‘how does SEO work on Google’. Everything seems legit, but your website’s still not showing up in the search results. What should you do next? While a lack of SERPs success can be highly frustrating, it’s important to not give up hope. Many problems can be easily fixed. So, here are 9 reasons your website isn’t showing on Google and how to rectify common issues.
- Your website is too new
Google crawls the web and indexes new pages. If your website is too new it might not yet rank for any search terms, so be patient. To check Google knows your website exists, run a search for site:yourwebsite.com. To check Google knows about a specific page, run a search for site:yourwebsite.com/a-page-you-want-to-show-up-in-google/. Enter your details as necessary.
No luck? Then create a sitemap, or an XML file, detailing which pages are important on your site and where to find them. Submit it via Google Search Console.
- Search engines are being blocked from indexing your pages
Pages with a ‘noindex’ meta tag won’t be indexed. This piece of code can easily be added to your page if you select the wrong settings as many developers don’t want a page to go-live before they’ve finished working on it. The Coverage report on Google Search Console will help you spot any indexing errors.
- You’re preventing the crawling process
Essentially, you tell Google where it can and can’t crawl on your website. Google can’t crawl URLs blocked in your robots.txt file. Again, head to Google Search Console. Check the Coverage report and look for Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt errors.
- You don’t have enough quality backlinks
If you’re wondering ‘how to show my website in google search engine’, it’s likely you’ve encountered a problem and are looking for solutions. All pages need to prove their worth and this means having high-quality backlinks. By pasting your URL into Site Explorer, you’ll be able to monitor your backlinks.
- You’ve no relevant keywords
It might sound obvious, but if you’re trying to rank for a specific keyword, then you must incorporate it into your content – particularly titles and headers. But there’s more too it. Google needs your page to be as relevant as possible which means it wants to see relevant keywords too. So, think about creating content around keyword clusters.
- You haven’t thought about ‘search intent’
Google has a job to do. And that’s to provide users with content based on their search intent. Therefore, if someone is looking for ‘best 0 interest rate credit cards’ Google is more likely to present lists over a page that is completely salesy. So, an SEO content rethink may be necessary. Top 10 blogs are always a good idea with your brand being one of the listings.
- You have duplicate content
If you’ve duplicate content, Google might not index both pages as it takes up unnecessary space in their database. Or, it might index both. This can cause issues as the authority of one page can be split between two URLs. If the backlink authority from both URLs is consolidated, your pages would likely rank higher. Carry out a content audit to ensure each page on your site is unique.
- You’re ignoring E-A-T
Google’s E-A-T concept helps identify pages that deserve to rank. Essentially, the search engine is looking for website that radiate Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness. Demonstrating this can help improve rankings, so make sure any content posted by your team is strong and that their credentials are good.
- Your load times are slow
Load times can affect SEO significantly. So, if you’ve videos or images that are damaging the efficiency of your site, you should resize and optimise your content accordingly.
If you’re looking for an SEO content agency that can help with your strategy, contact Whitefish Marketing today.
